


Murder Melody

by baeconandeggs, Ink-and-stars (AriasOfSnow)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: BAE2017, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, mainly involving mirrors, mental illness and depression, mentions of past abusive relationship, secondary character death, slight horror and psychological elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-04 23:48:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 147,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11001537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/AriasOfSnow/pseuds/Ink-and-stars
Summary: Park Chanyeol had three secrets that he always kept to himself. The first one was the fact that he was born with a melody resounding deep in his head. The second turned out to be that, when finding the right variations in the score, he hummed his melody and mirrors changed into windows to somewhere else. The last one was the way that the voice at the other side of the looking glass had told him that his father and sister were going to die.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author: anonymous  
> Prompt#: #329  
> Title: Murder Melody  
> Word Count: 147.047  
> Side Pairing(s): None  
> Rating: NC-17  
> Warning(s):Mentions of a past abusive relationship, mentions of suicide, secondary character death, mental illnesses and depression. Slight horror and psychological elements, mainly involving mirrors.  
> Disclaimer: The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Author's Note: To my prompter, I hope you like the story! I tried to create an interesting world and concept out from what you gave me and this is the result! To everyone else, this story is actually much lighter than the warnings make it out to be *laughs* so I hope you enjoy it too. I would like to thank the mods for their kindness and eternal patience with me this year, and also I for always cheering me up, M for beta reading all 147K of it, Mi for helping out with the first chapters and also Ma aka the person I always go to when I’m stuck in the creative process and/or want to cry. You all rock, and if I finished this story, it has been because of you.

**Preface  
** _Missa defunctorum_

 

The voice in the mirror had told Chanyeol that his father and sister were going to die.

It had been his fault, he guessed, even though he hadn’t wanted to admit it at first. He shouldn’t have sung his song after the sun had set, even if something in the melody calmed him down, even if what happened when he did made him curious. The chords that shaped it had always been stuck in his head, like invisible threads holding his very conscience in place.

His father had understood, if not all at least most of it. _Chanyeollie has a talent for music,_ he had said. _We should do our best to help him develop it, if that’s what he wants._ He had been wrong about one fundamental thing: what Chanyeol had was no mere skill, it went far beyond that. But he was right about his son wanting to learn, to practice, to shape his melody and enhance it, to become one with it.

 _My genius son,_ he used to call him. He had spoiled him, bought him a guitar much before his hands were big enough to hold it properly, allowing him to quit his English classes for music theory and piano.

Chanyeol’s song had been responsible for his death in the end, both his and Yoora’s. His melody had always been pure when he hummed it by daylight, but it became a twisted thing once night fell.

It was almost midnight, now.

“I told you, mom. I did,” the boy whispered, sitting at the edge of his bed, hands folded on his lap, resting on the folds of his too-big black suit jacket. They felt strange on him, those clothes, too stiff, and too formal, and already crumpled. “I told you that the mirror said they would die.”

His mother swallowed, kneeling before him on the floor to look at him in the eye. Her hands were rigid, softer than his but also so, so cold. “What happened to your father and sister was an accident, darling,” she whispered, her smile kind but her eyes on the wall. Chanyeol realized she was wearing a lucky charm around her wrist, one of those red string bracelets his grandmother always gave to Yoora and him for their birthdays. He hadn’t known that his mother liked them. “And what you told me was nothing but a dream. All children have nightmares.”

“No.” Chanyeol parted his lips to say that he had been awake. He wanted to let it out of his chest, to tell his mother that the song in his head was to blame. That he had learned that he could hear the music more clearly when he walked closer to the mirrors at home, at his music school. That once he’d found the right variations in the score, he had hummed his melody and the mirrors _reacted_ and changed. That it had always been okay by day, the polished surfaces undulating like ripples on water and becoming a conduit, a window to somewhere else, a safe haven of sorts. But then the melody had called him one night, and when he had walked to the mirror in his bedroom and responded with his own hummed song, the portal had opened to a very different place - and to the whispers. _Your father will die, your sister will die._ An augury, a bad omen, carried to him in the expressionless voice of another child. He had cried out and rushed to their parents’ room then, but they had not believed him. “I was not sleeping, I was awake. I promise I was.”

His mother was silent for a while, then she sighed. “Go to sleep, darling,” she whispered. She got up slowly, so slowly, her fingers leaving his as she turned around. Chanyeol wanted a kiss, a hand in his hair, and he parted his lips but no words came out. “I’ll wake you up tomorrow, okay? In time for school.”

“Mom,” whispered Chanyeol when she was at the door, her figure soft against the hallway lights. “Cover my mirror for me?”

For a moment, he thought she would turn around, but she remained where she was, her hair loose over her back, the curve of her shoulders stiff. “Sleep tight, okay?” she said, and then she was gone, closing the door behind her.

So Chanyeol did it himself - he rose from where he sat on his bed, pulled the duvet until it was a crumpled lump in his tiny hands and half dragged it across the room, until he was standing in front of his wardrobe. There was only a mirror there, and it was built in his closet doors, so he opened them and covered their whole surface with cloth - one with the duvet, the other one with a sheet. Then he rushed back to his bed, hid under the remaining blanket with his mourning suit still on, thought he would be safe there, concealed from sight and too tired to reach for the music that always rang inside him.

His song was the one to find him, waking him up like a reversed, twisted lullaby, dragging him out of his bed like the call of a siren. He didn’t want to listen, not after all that had happened, not when the sun was down, but he couldn’t help but _hear_. The melody was always with him, sometimes an incomplete tune, sometimes the shadow of an echo, but tonight it ran loud and clear, asking him to sing back, and before he could realize what he was doing, he was up on his feet, hands over his ears but steps guiding him towards his covered mirror, lips parting to mimic words he didn’t quite know.

 _Mom says it’s just a nightmare,_ he thought to himself. His right hand left his face and rose towards the duvet, cold, slightly shaking. _Mom says it’s just a nightmare._

He trembled when his fingertips grazed the fabric but didn’t step back when it fell, and he stood there humming even when the mirror turned liquid before him, like waves on water, like molten glass. His image had been there just a moment ago - a dark haired kid in a black suit, his eyes too big for his pale face - but his reflection trembled and melt, dissolving into something else entirely: a gathering of shadows, a face harder, colder than his own, his smile sharp like the edge of a knife.

“You couldn’t save them,” the shade at the other side of the mirror said, the same instant Chanyeol stopped humming. “How much of a failure are you?”

It wasn’t an accusation: it sounded more like a fact, neutral and blunt. “They were just coming home from my sister’s school,” replied Chanyeol. “It was you, right?”

“Me?” The shadow laughed. “You really know nothing. The world is such a rotten place, you see.”

“Shut up! What did you do to them?” Chanyeol had meant to whisper, but the shadow laughed and he realized he was rising his voice, up and up, like a shaky, fragile thing; a note held to its full length until it died to silence.

“What did I do,” the mirror echoed, “besides telling you what you were to expect in advance? What didn’t _you_ do, Park Chanyeol?”

That time, the boy stepped back. He found his desk to his right, gripped it so hard that he could feel the hard press of wood against his nails. The shadow at the other side of the glass was smiling, looking at him from a face eerily similar to his own and grinning like he was about to burst out laughing, and Chanyeol didn’t think. He blindly felt his way around the table until his fingers closed around the cold metal surface of his reading lamp and he _pulled,_ tearing the pull off its socket.

“Shut up!” he screamed. “Shut up, shut up, _shut up!”_

He was barely conscious of the door opening somewhere behind him, of a horrified voice calling his name, but he did not stop. He couldn’t. He was already swinging his arm, letting the momentum build for a second that felt too long before everything came down with a crash.

The shadow in the mirror wasn’t smiling anymore when the mirror cracked. It disappeared so fast, too fast, as if it had never been there, but Chanyeol kept hitting the surface, until it was turned into a cobweb of glass and he felt hands around his web, pulling him away from the constellation of shards on his bedroom floor.

“Chanyeol!” his mother called. “Chanyeol, stop!”

“There was something there!” he protested. He hadn’t realized that he had blood on his hands, dripping from a clean cut on his skin. Neither he knew when he had started to cry, his vision blurry and his throat raw. “He was in the mirror right now. He came when I sang; he told me that--”

“Chanyeol.” His mother was pale as a ghost when he turned to look at her. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”

“It is not! I just-- I--”

“It will be okay. You’ll be fine.” His mother wrapped her arms around him, pulled him with her until she was sitting on the ground and he was on her lap, head hidden in her neck. He allowed himself to let out a stifled sob then, grabbing the fabric of her nightdress as tight as he could. “I see it now. I see how it is but we’ll fix it. No monster will ever reach you if you don’t sing that song anymore, you see? So keep it out of your head and we’ll be fine. Don’t listen and they will be powerless.”

“Can I do that?” he whispered. He felt so absurdly tired, but he tried to let go of his mother, to find reassurance in her face, a smile that could guide him to sleep.

But her grip tightened on him, iron-strong, fingers digging into his skin to the point of pain. They pierced his skin like broken glass, digging deeper and deeper, keeping him in place, and the boy let out a gasp. When he looked up at last, the face over his was not his mother’s but a cracked, splintered thing - a living doll made of the fragments of a shattered mirror, eyes black, lips blue, skin hard and fractured, cracks open on it like bloodless wounds.

“Is something the matter, son?” she asked, her voice a high-pitched screech, distorted and _wrong_. “Will you sing your murder melody to me?”

Chanyeol screamed and pulled off, fighting against the claws gripping him like a wounded animal. “I didn’t want to murder anyone!” he screamed, because it was _true_. The monster laughed, hoarse as sandpaper, and then he was releasing him with the charade of a smile, lips curling up grotesquely, mirror shards cracking as the skin moved.

Chanyeol only realized he had fallen when he felt the broken mirror remains on his floor pressing against his hands and back. His clothes should have protected him, his mother should have come to aid him, but all he got was the histrionic laughter of a glass doll, sharp pain and blue-black darkness engulfing him, pulling him down like ghostly hands keeping him underwater.

He couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe. So he parted his lips and tried to scream.

And when he did, the world turned upside down like he had been caught in a whirlwind, and then his eyes shot open and he found himself in the quiet, static darkness of a familiar room, his ragged breath above any other trace of sound, shattering the silence.

It had been a nightmare. Just another one. Nothing to worry about, no longer.

There were no shards on the floor, no broken mirror on his closet door anymore, no monsters under his bed. So it should be okay, yes, even if he could still hear the music.

* * *

 

**First Act - Introit**   
_Exaudi orationem meam;  
ad te omnis caro veniet._

 

His friends always told Chanyeol he was the unluckiest boy in the world.

They were - for the most part - joking, he knew, but as remarks and gossip went, there never was smoke without fire. Things had always been like that since he was a child: it rained when he wanted to go out, his bus always left without him when he was late and running towards the stop and teachers asked for the only unit he hadn’t studied when he had to take an exam.

 _You’re a cursed kid,_ Sehun used to say. _Not cursed in a very bad way. You’re just condemned to an eternal misfortune in your tiny, daily tasks. It could be worse._

Of course, that was easy to say when you were the best friend of the number one bizarre attraction in your neighborhood, but things got complicated when you were the one who always managed to throw food or drink or mud on his partner every time he landed a date, or who got his credit card data stolen by some internet kid who had used all the money he had saved from slaving himself at his part time job for buying jewelry in Hong Kong - he still hoped to get that refunded, but…

Sometimes, things went alright and he was tempted to believe that his special circumstances could make him more charming - ‘you see, baby, I am most possibly cursed’ sounded like an original pick-up line, at least - but then something happened and he remembered that he was, well, the unlucky friend.

“I can’t believe it,” he muttered, leaning on the shop counter and resting his head on the surface in dismay. It had been hurting all day, but now he felt like smashing it against something, if only to ease his suffering. “I can’t believe this store got the prize.”

“I have a feeling it would,” replied Sehun, shrugging. “Since, you know, you were the only employee who didn’t join the raffle. That certainly had to be a good omen.”

“I wanted to buy a ticket, but I forgot!”

In fact, Chanyeol had been the most excited one when the videogame franchise Sehun and him worked in had announced that 10th anniversary employee raffle. He didn’t have that much money to spare in games after all, and wanted a new computer, and a PS4 and an Overwatch game, but of course he had forgotten to pay for his ticket before the deadline came, and _of course_ his store had won the stupid raffle and all the employees who had gotten theirs - which meant everyone but him - had been gifted a fucking 3DS while he got nothing.

“Don’t miss your chances next time,” commented Sehun, who still had his prize in his hands and was observing it. Smugly. “It’s either that or telling your mother that all those lucky charms she makes you wear aren’t useful at all. Tell her you need new ones.”

“Like hell I’m doing that. These ones are small, at least. They are almost fashionable.”

“Almost.”

It was not Chanyeol’s fault if his mother insisted on him wearing ‘protective charms against ill omens’. It wasn’t such a high price to pay if he could keep her calm and away from his business. And perhaps wearing three bead bracelets and a giant straw necklace shaped like a dreamcatcher looked stupid, but he could also conceal all that beneath his clothes and keep living his life without her wanting to lock him in to keep him safe.

“Is your mom back yet?” asked Sehun while Chanyeol left his place at the counter to rearrange the games in the second-hand section. There was no one else at the store, as anyone would have expected out of a Thursday afternoon.

“Nope, still on therapy. She will be back tomorrow, thank god.”

“So you won’t have to explain when you go back home late tonight, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“You will have to tell her eventually, Chanyeol. You know that,” another voice said, and the boy turned his head just in time to see the legendary furred brow of his store manager - and fellow friend - directed at him in full force. Chanyeol had never known how a person so small could be so menacing, especially one who should had been objectively soft and cute, but his whole collection of excuses came to his lips before he could convince himself he didn’t feel slightly threatened.

“I will, Kyungsoo, just not the day my band debuts. You know how she is about music. I don’t want to make her unstable.”

His friend pursed his lips. “Then when? When you have saved enough money working here to move out with Sehun? He’s a rich kid, no apartment you can afford is going to fit his standards. Just so you know, you two being roommates is a hopeless case.”

“I am good with anything, really,” protested Sehun, in the kind of tone that implied that he probably wouldn’t be. Kyungsoo, who was standing in front of the back room door, deadpanned at him before turning towards Chanyeol with a tiny, fed up sigh.

“This is my band too, Park. It is important,” he said. Then he turned back to the back room, glaring at him before he closed the door, softly but firmly. “You have customers. Work. We’ll talk later.”

There were two tall boys his age just walking in, talking between them in something that awfully sounded like Mandarin. Chanyeol could be unlucky, but at least he was passionate when it came to selling games, so he strode towards them with a winning smile. One of the boys, hair dyed platinum blonde, had come looking for a new shooter to try out; he ended up heading to the register with two games, a very fancy headset and a new controller.

“Do you really need all this, Zitao?” the other man asked as his friend grabbed a limited edition gaming mouse with LED lights in three colors on his way to pay.

“I wanted one,” he explained, very matter-of-factly as he handed Chanyeol a very golden Visa card. The boy had never seen one so shiny. And so, the throb in his head was starting to kill him, but he smiled.

“Would you like to make a membership card? We have weekly offers.”

A brand new membership card and several minutes later, their clients left and Chanyeol was left alone with Sehun once more. He almost welcomed the silence, although it was never complete. As far as he knew, always cautious Kyungsoo kept aspirins in the backroom, but Chanyeol always avoided to take them, if he could. He always pictured his mother when he was about to do so, shaking her head and telling him that _he should let his body do its work._

“How much longer until we are allowed to leave this place?” he asked out loud.

“We are getting out at six today, just in time for dinner,” replied Sehun. “Wanna come eat something with me before your big night?”

“Would you treat me?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll have to pass,” said Chanyeol, walking back to the counter and leaning on it. “Not because of your astounding generosity, but because I need to get back home. I left my guitar there this morning, you know? I didn’t feel like carrying it through the day. That, and I need to change.”

“Yes. And you should remove those… charm things. No offense, but they don’t look very punk-rock.”

“We play alternative,” muttered Chanyeol, closing his eyes. “Esoteric stuff would make for a really good concept.”

“Except because it’s not,” protested Sehun. He spoke again, after a pause, and his voice sounded mildly concerned. “Are you okay? You’re kind of… pale.”

Chanyeol grimaced. “My head.”

He should have been used to his headaches after so many years, the same way he had grown accustomed to the melody at the back of his mind, but when he thought he could just ignore them, they came back in full force. The one torturing him that afternoon was being specially vicious - a constant thrum in his temples that wouldn’t go away, strong enough to even distort the chords of his song. The music had been loud that morning, urgent in a growing crescendo, but the melody had dulled and practically faded when his head had started to ache. It should have been a relief, to finally enjoy a few hours of silence, but it couldn’t be when he had to pay for it with pain.

“Maybe you should ask Kyungsoo to let you rest for a moment?”

“Nah, I’m okay.” Chanyeol had learned through time that activity was the best cure sometimes, and he much preferred that than trying to sleep. He didn’t need a restless nap; he wanted his brain to be active and fully awake. Today was his day, after all, and he wasn’t going to let a stupid headache ruin it. “The ache will stop,” he said. “If I just ignore it.”

He hoped that fortune would let him have that little victory, at least.

\--

Kyungsoo had been merciful enough to let Chanyeol leave fifteen minutes early in the end. He hadn’t done it for him, he had said, but for the sake of the band. “You can do whatever you want,” he had told him, “but I don’t want you in our debut gig with a migraine. So go home, eat something, rest and take an aspirin. I won’t allow you to go up on that stage if you don’t. Am I clear?”

“But you need me with the rest of the band. I am the only guitarist you have,” had replied Chanyeol, to no avail.

He knew he had to go home, if only just to take his stuff, but he had hoped to leave soon, to head to the bar where they were playing early and to indulge himself in something to drink to soothe his nerves. It wasn’t like he had much time to rest there, anyway, considering how long it took him to commute to the apartment he and his mother shared. Kyungsoo had never been there - both him and Sehun knew Chanyeol from his time living at his previous neighborhood - so he couldn’t know how far it actually was.

His mother had loved the place. She had called it peaceful and safe and quiet, like her decision to rent a tiny apartment there had come completely out of her love for modest residential suburbs and not because they barely had the money to afford something else. She still smiled every time she came back from therapy, however, with that big, groggy, empty smile of hers. On her bad days, it didn’t last for long, but Chanyeol still believed that she was more lucid there than how she would have been surrounded by the bright lights and trepidation of the city center. That’s why he had tolerated the place at first, even though he had other adjectives for it - empty, isolated, old. That was why he still did now, until he had the money to move out and could pay for better people to take care of his mother, for a better place for her to be.

It was cold when Chanyeol came out of his small metro station, the sidewalk covered with a thin layer of snow. Kyungsoo had always complained about winter like the season itself had something against him, but Chanyeol had never minded. He liked that weather, in fact, loved the snow and the grey sky. It made him feel lucid, awake, the cold creeping under his skin and sinking to his very bones until his fingers were numb below his old gloves. His melody was different too, slower than the rhythm of spring, more delicate than the lively summer melody, simpler than the warm harmonies of autumn. Faint, made of crystal bells and strings and wind.

Not very punk-rock, Sehun would have said, had he known there was a song to listen to. Chanyeol didn’t mind; he already had punk-rock enough in his life as it was.

Night had already fallen, and Chanyeol crossed the street towards the single convenience store at the other side of the road. It was as empty as the train platforms, as the street, except for the affable old woman who observed him with a worried frown when she saw him rush towards the medicine section.

“Are you okay, Chanyeollie?” she asked when he headed to the register to pay. The boy hated that question.

“It’s just my head,” he replied with his best good boy smile. “I want to head out with my friend later and I don’t want to feel like someone’s hitting my head with a hammer, Mrs. Kim. I would be terrible company.”

At this, the woman laughed, then feigned shock. “Going out? With your friends? Don’t you have class tomorrow?”

“Maybe, but I’m a responsible human being. I won’t go to bed too late, I promise.”

“Be careful, and get warm, will you? It’s very cold outside, Chanyeollie, even the fountain at the park is frozen!”

“Don’t you worry, I will!”

His breath came out in white puffs as he hurried down the street, keeping his gloved hands in his pockets and his head half buried in his old, grey scarf. His apartment complex was close to the park and far from the station, a tall, grey nondescript building with barely no lights on the windows. Whoever had built that place had probably thought that it could be possible to compensate the unremarkable exterior by emulating a grand interior, but the white stone entrance hall, with its black and white checked floor, empty concierge desk and cracked, pale stone stairs, looked as empty as everything else. The building had apparently been a hotel before it was turned into apartments, and Chanyeol couldn’t help but wonder who in their sane mind would have paid to stay in an outskirts suburb like that one.

 _Some people have really bad business ideas,_ he thought as he climbed the stairs, too cold to wait for one of the old elevators.

Their apartment was on the fifth floor, across from the door of an old lady who lived alone with too many cats - too cute and too fluffy and so very allergic to poor, unlucky souls like him - at the center of a long, dim corridor.

He fumbled with the keys for a moment, opened his door. “I’m home,” he whispered, despite knowing no one would be there to offer a reply.

The first thing he saw when he turned on the hall lights was a big, golden cross, a sad figure pinned to its surface with dark nails, droplets of painted blood on his hands and feet and agony on his face. Jesus Christ on his cross: the last birthday present he had received, barely two weeks ago. Christianity was his mother’s recurrent obsession - her idols of choice came and went, but her Lord always reappeared sooner or later - so Chanyeol shouldn’t have been surprised, but still he had been shocked about how big and how golden that thing was, and how much in pain the figure at the center of all that mess seemed to be. Her mother had wanted to hang it in his room; Chanyeol had told her that it would serve a much greater purpose if they placed it close to the entrance door.

 _So demons don’t come in,_ he had told her. What a lie.

There were more of her mother’s personal amulets inside the house, everywhere. She had forbidden mirrors after her husband and Yoora’s accident, after Chanyeol’s incident, and it had been just that at the beginning but her fixations had expanded, like fire on oil. First, she had covered the mirrors, then she had ordered them completely removed; she had grown scared of her own reflection on the windows and had drawn the curtains closed, even when the sun was up. Chanyeol had been sixteen by then, old enough to accept a part-time job after school, and another one on weekends, to study by himself at the local library and to return home only to sleep, to eat, to say hello and goodbye. Left alone with her in the darkness, his mother’s demons had evolved, turned bigger, crueler, looming shadows that, at twenty-two, Chanyeol didn’t know how to stop.

He had tried to talk sense into his mother, but it had been too late for him to know what to say. She got angry sometimes, and tried to forbid and ban - don’t go to university, don’t work outside, don’t, _don’t_ \- but Chanyeol was the one bringing money home and his heart was too far away to listen. So he would do things his way, because it was the only way he knew.

The boy sighed as he turned the lights of the hallway on, walking towards their tiny, messy kitchen. His mother’s last form of entertainment before she left for therapy had been drawing crosses on the wall, black permanent marker against dirty beige. Some of them had been drawn in haste - small and irregular and dark like flocks of tiny birds near the ceiling - but she had taken her sweet time in others, retouching them with her marker until the lines were straight and thick. Chanyeol’s eyes were drawn to the shapes, even though he tried to keep his gaze on the kitchen door as he walked. Sehun and Kyungsoo wanted him to rest, but they didn’t know how heavy the air was in that place, how it retched of his mother’s floral perfume, how it felt like nightmares.

Luckily, his mother had never liked the kitchen much, so, except for the dreamcatcher on the windows it hadn’t been touched. Not much. His head was still throbbing, much more than before, so he hastily opened one of the cabinets and searched for his favorite mug among the mess of mismatched plastic glasses and cups.

“Here you are,” he whispered, smiling when he managed to take it out. The chubby, yellow face of Pikachu smiled at him while he poured water into the mug and dissolved the aspirin into it. He needed to eat something too, so he fished a couple of cookies from a blue, metal box, munching them while he headed towards his room. “Home, sweet home,” he muttered once he had closed the door after him, sighing and letting his bag fall on the floor.

That apartment could be his mother’s kingdom, but his bedroom was his little bastion, the last place where the windows remained wide open and the walls were covered in the anime and game posters of his teenage years instead of black crosses and old gold. There were remains of her presence, of course, in the way all the furniture had been mutilated to remove any trace of built-in mirrors, in the huge dreamcatcher hanging from the door or the red charm bracelets next to the figurine of Saint Judas on his desk, but there were just traces, little remains of where he lived and who he was.

Of course, there was no music. Or, at least, in plain sight.

Chanyeol walked to the window, opened it even if the December air was too cold and the sky too dark - he needed to _breathe._ Then, he kneeled in front of his bed and felt the floor for his guitar case, smiling when his fingers grazed it, when he pulled it out.

Sehun was in love with all the pretty girls in town. Kyungsoo lived for his future university degree and perfection in his work. Chanyeol was too unfortunate to date (he liked boys, only boys, which for starters, he felt, reduced the available population by half, but boys didn’t seem to like him) and too busy to make his exam results any better than ‘mediocre’ but at least he had music. Every time he closed his eyes, he was greeted by the melody of his song, and by the ones he himself made when he tried not to listen to the tune in his head.

 _Don’t let the murder melody in,_ his mother said in some of his nightmares. _Sing it, sing it for me_ , she begged in the other half. Chanyeol wanted both, but did none. That was what he was best at.

“For God’s sake, my head.”

Letting out a defeated sigh, the boy moved to sit on his bed, with his back against the headboard and his guitar case on his lap. He opened it carefully, taking the instrument out and strumming it, distractedly, keeping his eyes closed but smiling to himself. He had worked for months, and he made had gotten the worst turns at his weekend bar job and missed the raffle at the videogame store, but at least he had that: his brand-new guitar (and not just _any_ guitar but the mint-green Stratocaster he had been craving since middle school), the band with Kyungsoo and his friends, their first gig at a decent bar. And he hadn’t jinxed it; he wasn’t going to jinx it.

Even his headache was receding now, a little bit at a time. He’d be good to go in fifteen or twenty minutes, he thought, breathing the night air and placing his guitar at his side on the duvet as he lay down. Perhaps Sehun and Kyungsoo were right and it would be good for him to rest, only for five minutes, until the pain was gone.

\--

Chanyeol dreamed that he felt into a white void full of black crosses. He heard the crash of a car, the voice of a child calling to him, laughter and screams. The cry for help of a stranger. A prayer. _Come to me._ And then more words, his body falling onto a bed of broken glass; claws and crystal shards on his skin. Shrilling cold, and his mother calling to him.

_Chanyeol._

There were fingers on his throat, a too-wide, too-white smile and black eyes. If he looked around, the black crosses were shifting, changing into dancing human shapes dressed in black suits and night dresses, following the chords of a distorted, off-pitched song like madmen, their arms raised up and their heads hung low, limp, like the limbs of puppets. As much as he tried, Chanyeol couldn’t make out their features, and he tried to step back before he realized he didn’t have a place to step back to.

 _You’re singing it wrong_.

He felt that he couldn’t breathe. He screamed. And suddenly the world was spinning, turning from white into black and then into the dirty beige walls of his room and his melody was back, loud and insistent at the back of his head. He inhaled, deeply, blinking to focus his vision in the ceiling, in the familiar posters on the walls. The nightmare hadn’t been real, he knew that, but the cold was, and his room was freezing.

It shouldn’t have been. He had opened the window barely minutes ago, it was cold outside but not enough time had passed to…

“Shit,” muttered Chanyeol, sitting on the bed. “Shit, shit, _shit._ What time is it?”

It was eight thirty. His gig was at ten. He could still make it if he ran. He just needed to message Kyungsoo and—

“Sweetheart.”

The voice came in a whisper, so soft that Chanyeol almost believed he was imagining it, so familiar that his breath hitched in his throat as he turned towards his bedroom door. Silhouetted against the hallway lights was a woman, petite and pale and looking at him in accusation.

“Mother?” he said, dumbfounded.

His mother had been kind and beautiful, back when his father and sister lived, the kind of person who was always soft, always nice, always smiling. She still looked pretty now, with her long, messy hair and black eyes, but there was a hardness to her that had never been there before, sharp edges around an empty space; a gleam in her eyes that was not caused by a smile but by a fever that burned deep inside her.

Chanyeol and her had always looked alike. “Weren’t you supposed to be in therapy?” he asked. _In treatment._

“They let me go before,” she said. “I asked them to.”

Chanyeol’s mother had been well taught by the demons she played with. She had gotten out before schedule other times, using the smiles of the woman she used to be. _I have a son,_ she would say. _He’ll be at home these days, I want to see him._ She was a loving mother, and she wasn’t technically hospitalized, and Chanyeol was her legal caretaker, so sometimes they would let her out. It was more than clear that she had deceived them all.

“Why didn’t they call me?”

Her mother shrugged and walked into the room, gratefully, delicately. It looked almost grotesque. “Why have you opened the window, sweetheart? You should keep the curtains closed.”

“I had a headache,” replied Chanyeol. He got up, as fast as he could. There was trepidation in his veins, the rush of adrenaline. He needed to get out and leave for the concert before his mother realized that—

“Did they come in? Did they get into your head and took you?”

“Mother—“

“You took some of your charms off. You know you shouldn’t take them off. They come through the looking glass, and I can’t protect you from mirrors if you are so adamant in leaving our home. Why won’t you let me protect you, sweetheart? Why did you take them off?”

 _Because they are useless and uncomfortable and stupid and I only wear them because you want me to._ “I am okay, mother, I really am.”

His mother was at his desk, looking at the discarded red bracelets next to the Judas statuette. She turned around to look at him, all smiles. Chanyeol felt a shiver running down his back. “If you are,” she said, “why have you brought that thing to this house?” She was pointing to his guitar, her voice too soft, too sweet, and Chanyeol swallowed. “My lovely boy knows that we have forbidden music in this place to protect him.”

“I— Mom.” Kyungsoo had told Chanyeol that he would need to tell the truth to his mother one day. Kyungsoo knew many things, and was aware that she was mad, but he didn’t know a thing - and still, he could be right. In Chanyeol’s mind there was always music, and there were some things that couldn’t be forever kept in the dark. He was surrounded. He needed to leave now. He couldn’t lie. “Music is just music. It’s not something you can forbid just because you feel like it. There’s nothing wrong with it, and I love it. I want—”

“You have been playing that?” his mother asked, rising her tone in alarm, in betrayal. “You know that you should not. It’s dangerous for you, so toxic. That song will slip into your mind whether you want it or not. There’s dark magic in it.”

“There’s not! What are you even saying, mother? Magic doesn’t exist!”

“Does it not?” His mother bent forward, so fast, and grabbed Chanyeol’s guitar by its neck. The boy let out a strangled scream but wasn’t quick enough to get it back and so he stared, lips parted and eyes wide open. She was holding the instrument like one would hold a weapon - with a care that’s only reserved for evil things. “Then what forced you to bring this thing to me? What is controlling you?”

“Nothing! I am in a band!”

“What?”

“We make music! Me and my friends have been practicing for months and we play our first gig today! I bought that guitar for it!”

“You’ve done all that behind my back?”

“I am sorry for that, but see? Nothing has happened!”

“For now.” His mother pursed his lips. The wind was coming through the window, making a mess of her already disheveled hair. Her voice was firm when she spoke. “You’re not playing this thing anymore, sweetheart. I don’t allow it.”

“Mother, I have a concert now.”

“I know. I understood. You’re not going.”

“Mom.” Chanyeol stood up then, feeling the coldness of the floor through his socks. He was still wearing his coat, but he felt frozen all over. He advanced, carefully, towards her. “I have to leave. Give me my guitar back.”

“No. You’re being careless, you’re letting go, you’re taking your protection charms off.” She took one step back, then another, until the window was at her back and the wind was pushing her hair in her face.

“I’ll wear them, I promise, just let me go.”

“Why is that important for you to ignore what I say?” she whispered. She looked so sad, so mad, so far away, so angry in her special, quiet way. “You won’t see it, you can’t see it. And if you won’t do it, I will. You won’t get out, you won’t lie to me, you can’t have this!”

Chanyeol stumbled forward, screaming at her to stop, but he was a second too late. Turning around with gleaming eyes, his mother rose his guitar and threw it off the window with all the strength she has, like an offering to her god, a sacrifice to appease her demons. The world blurred into slow motion, and for a second Chanyeol saw the polished surface of his instrument - the one he had worked so hard to pay, the brand-new start of his band career - suspended in the night air before the inevitable fall.

“ _No,”_ he shouted, pushing his mother away from the window to look down, throat dry. There had been a faint cracking sound. The messy parts of something broken were dark on the pale snow, under the streetlights. Chanyeol let out a shaky breath. He saw in white and red. “What have you done?” he whispered, voice raising with every word until he was almost screaming again. It couldn’t be. “What the _hell_ have you done?”

Hair still all over her face, his mother smiled. “Come on, sweetheart, now that this have been taken care of, let me make you a cup of hot chocolate, yes?”

Chanyeol took a step back. “No,” he said. He saw his mother’s expression fall, but he didn’t care. His gig was at ten. His gig would be at ten and he wouldn’t be there. “No wonder I am unlucky as fuck. How wouldn’t I be, when I have to deal with this every single day that you’re here?”

“Chanyeol—“

“You’re not protecting me, with all these… crosses and stupid charms! You’re not doing a thing for me except forbidding and stepping all over the things I want because of— Because of _what?_ What kind of life is this for me?”

“You don’t understand—“

“I don’t want to!” Chanyeol turned around, left the room. He could hear his mother still calling for him, but he couldn’t stay in that place, with his black crosses and Dreamcatchers, and eerie saint statuettes. He felt like suffocating, like a big, dark weight was crushing him, pushing him down. “Leave me alone!”

He had left his shoes next to the door when he had entered, and he didn’t even bother to tie the laces when he put them on again. “Wait!” his mother screamed, a desperate shrill, but he slammed the door shut anyway, storming down the stairs like distance from that apartment could _fix_ something.

The pure, white snow had been defiled where his guitar rested and his instrument had been broken beyond repair. He grabbed it anyway, holding it with now gloveless fingers before he ran, away from that place but far from the station too - from the city center and its lights and the gig he couldn’t play.

Kyungsoo would be mad at him, he thought, as his steps took him to the only safe spot he could think of, the one remaining place where he could be alone. He had his phone on him still, so he called his friend as he crossed the gates of the big, empty park close to his apartment block, biting his lip when he heard the other boy pick the call up.

“Chanyeol?” his voice sounded clear, even though he raised his tone at the end of the question. Chanyeol liked messaging the best; he didn’t call that often. “Are you late?”

“I’m not coming.” There was only silence at the other side of the line. “My mother found my guitar. She— She broke it. Threw it off the window, just like that. I sold my old one, I have no instrument to play.”

“We could call someone so they can lend it to you,” Kyungsoo started, then interrupting himself. “Are you okay? Chanyeol…”

“I can’t reach the bar in time. And I have no money. I left my wallet, my whole bag, at home and I don’t really feel like going back for it. Is Sehun with you? Do you mind asking him if he can come for me? Pick me up and let me stay at his place a couple of days?”

Chanyeol had played in that park before, back when they had moved there and his mother still took him out, to places. He had come later too, by himself, both at day and at night, so he knew how to navigate the place in the darkness, even if half of the street lamps were not functioning. He loved it there; he enjoyed the calm, and the silence, and the big trees and the unkempt grass. He loved the central square the most, with its green metal benches and its round stone fountain.

Mrs. Kim at the convenience store had been right, the winter cold had frozen the water in the basin. The ice looked strangely neat, so polished.

“Here’s here,” said Kyungsoo at the other side of the phone. His voice sound muffled, then. “He’ll come for you. Where are you?”

“At the park close to my apartment complex. There’s only one, I’ll message him my location.”

“Very well.” More silence. “Chanyeol.”

“Yeah?”

“Is your mother okay? Do the people at the hospital know how she is?”

“They are _treating_ her, Soo.”

“But do they really know? Everything? How she is with you sometimes?”

“Yes— Well, maybe not. Not all.” _You wouldn’t know, either. You don’t know everything that’s wrong with us._

“Chanyeol, she needs help. More than the one she gets.” His friend’s voice was so low, strangely soothing for someone who was always so hard and serious. Chanyeol felt a wave of nausea, a spike of panic. “You should— Maybe we should call to the hospital. Tell them.”

“I’ll think about it,” the boy whispered. But he knew Kyungsoo, he knew he wouldn’t stop insisting. “Ask Sehun to hurry up, if he hasn’t left for his car. It’s cold.”

“Do you have your coat on?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Send me the address, he will be there as fast as he can. We will talk later.”

He was left completely by himself, once Kyungsoo hung his phone. “Fuck,” muttered Chanyeol. “Fuck. Fuck it. Fuck.”

He hadn’t wanted this, he hadn’t asked for it. Not for the accident, not for the nightmares, and much less for the effect his father and sister’s deaths had had on his mother’s mind. He didn’t want to speak about it with Kyungsoo, and much less he needed Sehun or him to come to his neighborhood, to his home, and see deserted streets, half-empty building, drawn curtains and crosses on the walls. He wanted to keep being the cursed child, the target of friendly jokes, not… whatever he was. Not his mother’s son.

“This is what I fucking get for playing along,” he grunted under his breath. His hands went under the collar of his coat, for his Dreamcatcher necklace, pulling so hard that his neck hurt when he took it off. It fell on the snow, followed by the bright red bracelets around his wrists, blood-crimson on the white floor. “This is it. I’m done, I’m done.”

He closed his eyes, burying his face in his hands, sitting at the edge of the fountain basin. He felt like a ghost, with only the chords of the same old song there to keep him company. It was back now, in full force, stronger and neater, wrapping around him like a gust of warm air in the middle of a blizzard - it was so clear, so clear, more beautiful than ever before.

 _You could sing for a while._ The thought came, sudden, into his mind. _It would do you good._

And, yeah, he could. He did not know the words - didn’t know if there were words at all - but he knew the music. The strings and the winds and the gracefulness of a melody who grew from a delicate whisper to complex sets of notes, from piano to fortissimo, from a cry to a roar. _Hum along to it, own it, come._

It had been years since he had tried to sing his song out loud, out of respect for his mother’s wishes, or of fear because of his nightmares and the things he had seen as a child, the ones that could or could not be real. _Mom, cover my mirror for me?_ He hadn’t tried to hum the melody he heard since the night of his father and sister’s funeral, but doing so, right then and there, in the middle of the park, alone, looked a lot like a means of protest, his own tiny act of rebellion. _I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be this person. Let me out._

His voice was shaky, but it felt too good to follow the song, to let go. Suddenly, he was not cold anymore: he felt warm, in fact, surrounded by light. And when he opened his eyes, he saw it: light, indeed, coming from somewhere behind him. The fountain. The ice.

“What…?”

He turned around. Where the ice had been cold and bluish-white, it now gleamed golden. It shone like a treasure, like a beam of light, the surface of it curling like ripples on water (exactly like those times, when he was a child), showing him the reflection of another place, somewhere he didn’t know.

_Come here._

_It can’t be real._

He knew he shouldn’t, but he leaned in to touch. He wondered if the mirage would shatter into pieces once he tried to touch it, if that light was made of the same substance than his mother’s shadows. His fingers touched the ice and the surface undulated under the contact, gelatinous and malleable where it should had been hard. His fingers sank into it - it was dead cold.

“It can’t be,” he whispered. His song was a deafening clamor in his ears, even now that he wasn’t humming along anymore. The melody was everywhere, the melody was everything. _Soul melody. Murder melody._

He felt something on his fingers, a caress, contact, the touch of something cold.

His head snapped up. His mind became awake and aware. He didn’t know what he had done, what he had been doing, but he needed to _stop._ Now.

He tried to take his fingers out of the frozen, shimmering water, but it was too late. His hand was inside the basin, up to his wrist, and cold fingers closed around his flesh. He felt a flash of white pain and a pull, so strong that he lost his balance. He felt forward and screamed, like he had only screamed once before.

It was all for nothing. The surface of the frozen fountain only offered resistance for a heartbeat. Then, it was sinking around him, pulling him down, from light and gold and music to distorted noise and darkness. There was cold water in his lungs, a burst of laugher in his ears, a flash of white and he was falling, deeper and deeper, like Alice down the rabbit hole. Through the looking glass.

He was suspended in nothingness, in the middle of nowhere, for a second that felt forever. But every beginning has an end, and his came soon.

He saw a wide smile in the darkness. A blue sky. A flash of bright colors. Then the impact. A new wave of blinding pain. The coldness of steel oh his neck. And then nothing.

 

* * *

 

 **Second Act - Kyrie Eleison**  
 _Kyrie eleison;_  
Christe eleison;  
Kyrie eleison.

 

When Chanyeol came around, there was a boy on him. Literally above, straddling him. He looked pretty cute, all fair grayish-brown hair and soft skin, and was staring down at him with a frown, like he was some kind of riddle he had yet to figure out. He was wearing a big, black eyepatch that covered his left eye and concealed part of his face.

“What the fuck?” Chanyeol said.

The boy made a face. “Wow, I was going to ask you if you were okay but hey, if you have time to swear I guess that you’re alive and well?”

Chanyeol tried to get up and the stranger gave him space, lending him a hand to support himself while he got onto his feet. His head was not hurting anymore, his song had a _different_ ring and he didn’t know where in the world he was. He didn’t recognize the room, that looked like a very packed, stone cellar, with bundles covered in cloth everywhere and a rather dusty floor, and of course he didn’t recognize that boy, and much less did he understand why he had an eyepatch and was dressed in a neat, dark blue suit and a striped shirt like some kind of mafia underling.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Me?” The other man rose his eyebrows in disbelief. “No, no. Who are _you?_ You owe me a mirror, sir.”

“I owe you what? Wait a second, what do you mean?” The stranger pointed to a place just behind Chanyeol, and when he turned around he saw it: a very ornamented full body mirror, framed in golden wood, and quite expensive-looking, but broken. Completely shattered. “Did I do this?” he asked, and the boy nodded, still frowning. Chanyeol didn’t remember a thing about that. “I’ll buy you a new one. I— I have some money saved.”

The stranger scoffed. “Do you think that’s an easy thing to do? I wanted to smuggle this one, and now I have no goods and my client’s gonna ask anyway. According to legend, breaking one of these means seven years of good luck, but in my case, and yours, it’s really, really bad. Now you owe me. Compensation for damages, young man.”

 _Seven years of good luck?_ “It’s just a mirror, I—“

“Not _just._ Mirrors are one of the most prized things over here, but of course you had to come through that one and ruin the business of the century. What am I to tell Mr. Zhang at the party later? That a Traveller appeared from within my precious merchandise and broke it? He will ask for a refund anyway. I would, if I were him: having a broken mirror is worse than not having a mirror at all.”

“Wait a second. What party? What business? What Mr. Zhang?” Chanyeol looked around, inhaling. That boy spoke his language alright, but he didn’t understand a word of what he was saying.

“It doesn’t matter! The only relevant thing here is that you are indebted to me! And well, this whole situation is terrible, but it could be worse, since I have you. I thought Mirror Travelers were extinct, but now here you are, and you should be useful to me. Somehow. Don’t you think?” The stranger stopped frowning then and grinned at him, stretching one arm for the other boy to shake his hand. He totally was Chanyeol’s type, at least physically speaking. He also spoke like a madman, because _of course_ Chanyeol couldn’t meet a cute guy and expect for him to be a normal person. “Byun Baekhyun, at your service. Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

“Park Chanyeol,” Chanyeol said, shaking his hand and starting to frown himself. “I, um— This might sound weird, but where am I? And what is a Mirror Traveler? Are you sure that you didn’t mistake me with someone else or something like that?”

The other boy - Baekhyun - rose his eyebrows once more - then he let out a gasp. “Oh, I see! You don’t know! So you are an involuntary Traveller? You didn’t specifically want to come to this place, right?”

“I don’t even know what this place is,” replied Chanyeol. He probably sounded stupid, or crazy, or even both. Baekhyun didn’t seem to care, judging by how agitated he suddenly looked. “Where am I?”

“El Dorado’s second subterranean warehouse. El Dorado, by the way, is the name of my company.”

“And how in the world did I get into your company’s warehouse?” _I don’t sleepwalk, do I?_

“Um.” Baekhyun bit his lip and pointed to a place behind Chanyeol. The same exact place he had pointed at before. “Please don’t freak out but, you know, Mirror Travelers are called Mirror Travelers because they, sort of, well… Travel through mirrors? Between this world and the one at the other side of the looking glass. It’s a very descriptive name.”

 _“What?_ Are you trying to say that I broke your mirror because I travelled across it? _”_

Baekhyun nodded, looking at him with something akin to apprehension. “Yes, but not exactly. You shattered it after you appeared from within. You fell to the floor and dragged it with you, so it broke with the crash.”

“Wait, are you drunk?” It was either that or high. Maybe he had taken some weird substance in the costume party he had obviously escaped from. Because whoever he was, Chanyeol hadn’t seen him before, and he hadn’t for his life attended any party last night, and much less one who requested of its attendants to dress like some weird fashion combination between The Great Gatsby and Ciel Phantomhive.

He had been preparing for his debut gig, in fact, before things had gone wrong. The memories were a blurred whirlwind in his head, but he still remembered having gone home and finding his mother there, arguing with her and having his guitar thrown off the window. He had run to the park then, removed his stupid collection of lucky charms and sang his song. After that…

After that, the fountain had changed, shone in golden and shown him another place. The ice had sunk under his fingers, let his hand across. Something had pulled him in, dragged him inside. To the other side.

“It can’t be,” he whispered. “Are you implying that I am in another world?”

“I didn’t imply it; I said it.” Baekhyun replied. “So well, welcome to Insomnia City, I suppose. I hope you enjoy your involuntary stay and all that while you help with my mirror issue. We need to discuss business, Mr. Park Chanyeol. Then, if you want, I can take you to places.”

“You have got to be lying.”

The other man looked almost comically upset when Chanyeol pushed him aside to rush towards the set of stairs leading out from the basement, but at least he didn’t try to stop him. Chanyeol was in the ground floor in a second, and out of the warehouse without even sparing a look around. The street outside was narrow and empty, barely an alley that lead into a broader, noisier avenue; and even though he didn’t recognize the grey, tall buildings around him, he ran towards it, because maybe he would know where he was, or find a metro station, or just stop any random passerby and tell them that he had woke up in a basement with a crazy man spitting nonsense.

He reached the main street, already panting… only to stop dead in his tracks. The avenue was broad and straight, a gash between tall, grey buildings covered by the remnants of a faint morning mist, but the traffic was different, the people was different. Even the streetlights weren’t the same - they were tall, blackened iron lamp posts, old fashioned and foreign and _strange_. Exactly as the people walking down the sidewalks, in their pressed suits and hats and Charleston dresses, and the cars, with their neat colors and their long bodies and their round wheels.

“What is going on?” he whispered. That whole street looked like a movie set. Maybe he was in a movie set, and Baekhyun was just a guy in a costume playing tricks on him for a candid camera show. A TV program gone wild and with a really high budget, or something like that.

It didn’t made sense that he hadn’t heard anyone talk about it but nothing there did.

“Hey, hey, hey, can you be a little more careful?” a voice called out to him. A moment after, Baekhyun was all over him, grabbing him by the rim of his jacket and dragging him back into the alley where he had come from. There hadn’t been bite into his words, not in the slightest, but he was still looking at Chanyeol like he was a riddle he couldn’t quite figure out. “You stand out a big deal! We don’t have clothes like yours at this side of the mirror. Do you want someone to call the Marshall Police on you?”

Calling the police would have seemed like a wonderful idea. At least in normal circumstances. “Maybe they’ll tell me where in the world I am.”

“I told you, didn’t I? Insomnia City. They will tell you the exact same thing, and then they will interrogate you because of how weird your general presence here is - no offense. Do you really want the Marshall Police to question you?”

Chanyeol opened his mouth, only to close it. “You’re making it sound like I shouldn’t want to?”

“Stars in the sky, it’s kind of obvious that you know nothing, Park Chanyeol,” replied Baekhyun with a long, dramatic sigh. “Let me tell you something: I am sorry to be the one mentioning this to you considering how shocked you look, but it’s not going to be easy for you to move around Insomnia unnoticed. You came from the other side of the mirror, you don’t know the city and not even your clothes are adequate. You need a guide, someone discreet.”

“Someone like you?”

Baekhyun grinned, his only visible eye gleamed. He still looked like an adult, slightly more modern version of Ciel Phantomhive, but he still seemed nice. He had a pretty smile, at least, and Chanyeol had always felt inclined to trust people who did. “I am your man,” he said. “Come on, you’re still indebted to me. A favor for a favor.”

“Listen, you’re really kind and all, but I just— Why should I go and trust a random guy with an eyepatch? I mean—“

“I am no stranger, I introduced myself,” protested Baekhyun, very matter-of-factly. “And besides, you shouldn’t distrust me for my eyepatch, that’s rude. I lost my eye defending myself against an attack by the sky pirates of Prosperity City, in the far north. These are my battle scars.”

Chanyeol needed to support his own weight against the wall of the building behind him. All that situation seemed so absurd that he wondered if he wasn’t in just another, more sophisticated nightmare. “Sky pirates,” he muttered.

“Sky pirates,” Baekhyun repeated. “Although you won’t find them around Insomnia. You shouldn’t worry about it.”

“That I shouldn’t— Why do you look so happy when talking about pirates. What is the next thing you’re going to tell me, that magic exists?”

Baekhyun’s grin turned wider. “Of course it does!” He stretched his arm, showing him his hand, palm up, and suddenly his skin was glowing, with light warm and golden. “It’s not like I can do much; this is barely a little trick but it’s something. But hey, you _are_ a Mirror Traveler. Aren’t you Blessed too?”

“Blessed?” More like providentially cursed, and neck-deep in shit. Chanyeol felt like he was going to have an aneurysm. Perhaps he already had one, and was in coma in some hospital after having fallen into a frozen fountain last night.

“Capable of using magic of some sort,” explained Baekhyun, who apparently hadn’t realized that he was about to have a panic fit - or simply didn’t care much about his general state of disbelief. “If you can, though, you shouldn’t use it, at least not in the open. There’s not much magic in the world, not with the Mist as it is, so to take energy from it has been technically forbidden. _Technically_ , if you know what I mean with that.”

 _I actually don’t._ “Look, I—“ started Chanyeol, trying to think. “I need…”

“You need to come with me.”

“I need a pond.”

Baekhyun tilted his head in confusion. He looked like a bird in human skin. “A pond?”

“I came through one,” explained Chanyeol. “Through a fountain close to where I live. It was frozen, and then the surface change and I crossed it, so maybe if I find another one I’ll be able to go back.”

“Do you want me to take you to a frozen pond?” repeated Baekhyun, blinking. “In summer?”

“It’s summer here?” Chanyeol let out a groan when the other man nodded. “Okay, okay.” _So breaking mirrors means good luck and it’s fucking summer in December. If it’s still called December here. Great._ “Can you take me to a fountain or something anyway? I need to check.”

“I don’t really think that will be of use. Maybe a frozen water surface could serve as a mirror of sorts for you to travel, but a normal pond it’s not the same thing. You should know that, it’s basic knowledge.”

“Look, whatever this place is, I need to go back. To my city, to my… To my world. My mother’s sick, and I argued with her last night and ran away from home. I can’t leave her alone, not without telling her where I am, not without calling the hospital. She’ll be wondering where I am. My friends will be worried. They were coming to pick me up last night and if I’m not there…” Chanyeol shook his head, eyeing the broad avenue beyond. How hard could it be, to find a pond, or a fountain, or even another mirror? How big was that city? Maybe he could ask around for a park. He took one step, and then another, and was about to start running towards the main street when something covered the sunlight, something above. He looked up and let out a very unmanly scream. “What the hell? Is that a zeppelin?”

“Regular Mist-Powered line, yes,” said Baekhyun. He grabbed his arm with long, nimble fingers. He still looked a bit apprehensive, but also clearly concerned. Friendly enough not to call the police, at least. And there he was, smiling again. “Hey, listen, Mr. Park Chanyeol, I can take you to a pond nearby, but with one condition.” He held a raised finger in front of Chanyeol’s nose, and well, at least he was cute, and enthusiastic. One of them had to be. “Once you realize that a fountain won’t take you home, you will be my assistant. You broke my mirror, so I need to find a new one. You can work for me and earn warm food and a bed until we do.”

“You want to _employ me_?”

“I am a businessman.” Baekhyun shrugged, letting out a satisfied, little laughter. “And you’re a Traveller from the other world, which means you’re limited edition goods, in a sense, so I’m intrigued. I need another mirror for… things, and you’ll need a looking glass to go back home, if I’m not mistaken. So, you see, mutual benefit. We should collaborate.”

“After you take me to that pond.”

“ _After_ I take you to that pond,” conceded Baekhyun. “Heh, so stubborn. But well, if you insist, let me fetch my hat.”

\--

Baekhyun was sitting at the edge of the stone fountain, the trees of the park casting shadows on his face, his eyes closed. He had removed his suit jacket and had carried it folded on his arm, the light blue color of his long-sleeved shirt strangely flattering on him and his fingers nimble as they drummed on the hat on his lap.

“I told you so,” he whispered, and Chanyeol could hear the smile in his voice.

“It must work somewhere! I can’t be stuck here, you don’t understand!”

“Well, Moonlight Park has one pond, two fountains and a lake. We tried the pond and everything you achieved was getting yourself wet and scandalizing some elderly ladies in their pretty walking dresses. The first fountain was also a failure and here you are now, soaked to your elbows and scaring the ducks. What have they even done to you?”

What Chanyeol was really wondering was the reason for two ducks to be swimming in a fountain, in all their green and brown glory, when they could have been spending their time at a bigger pond. One of them quacked and the boy grimaced at him, quickly removing his hands from the water nonetheless. Maybe Baekhyun wasn’t judging him much, but that obnoxious animal was, for sure.

“The water isn’t changing,” he sulked as an apology to both, and maybe to himself too. There was no gold light, no thick, sticky barrier sinking under his fingers: just water, plain and cold and slightly dirty. A part of him had hoped that all that was a very creative dream-slash-nightmare, but he had been there for hours and he still hadn’t woken up. “I thought… Maybe it is because it’s not frozen?”

“I don’t know about that.” Baekhyun stretched like a cat, arching his back and offering a lazy smile to him when he was done. “It’s said that the other world has more energy, so perhaps it easier there to turn things into mirrors, but here… I don’t think that can be done. Not easily. But stars, maybe you are Blessed with strong, inhuman powers, so what did you do last time to come here?”

“I— I sang?” said Chanyeol, and Baekhyun laughed in obvious disbelief. “There’s this song and I— I hear it sometimes. Or well, all the time. I was told not to hum to it, but I did, and then the ice of the fountain shifted and I was brought here. Or dragged, I don’t really know.”

“So music?” muttered Baekhyun. “No noise?”

“Noise?”

“I know someone who does. But it’s just that, however: just an agry buzz with no melody. Have you tried to sing, though? If that’s what brought you here, you know; maybe it would help you.”

Chanyeol had tried, had reached for the melody inside him and hummed to it, but things hadn’t been the same. The song still resounded at the back of his head, in the place he pushed it into when he didn’t want to listen, but it was faint and tremulous even if he tried to reach for it; essentially the same as it always been but also different at core. “I can’t sing it well,” he admitted. “I keep getting off-tune.”

“Why, are you hoarse?” asked Baekhyun, still smiling, but he pursed his lips and sighed when he saw Chanyeol casting his glance down, feeling all soaked and pathetic. “Oh, come on, I told you before: this situation is not ideal but it could have been much worse for you! Imagine you had crossed the mirror and found yourself alone at night. That would have been nasty. Now you have the sun, and you have _me._ ”

Chanyeol let his body drop on the fountain edge, next to Baekhyun but not close enough to get Baekhyun wet too. The other boy had lent him a long, grayish labor coat so he could cover his _rather inadequate clothes_ , but his misadventures with ponds, ducks and water had made the thing soaked on the sleeves, and from his thighs down. Baekhyun had been adamant about not letting him take it off (“if you’re gonna try, at least let anyone who walks into you believe that you’re a madman from this world, not an imported one”) but at least he had been okay with Chanyeol removing his shoes before walking into the pond. In a world of misfortune, the boy should still feel thankful for dry feet, he supposed.

“So no fountain,” he said.

“No fountain. But I told you: you’re bound to have better luck with a mirror.”

“So you want me to help you find one.”

At that, Baekhyun smirked. “Nah, I will be the one helping you get it. I’m the one with the contacts, you don’t know the city and wouldn’t even know where to start. But I told you: I’m short on working hands, you’re interesting and pretty, lost boys are always welcome aboard. Plus we both need the same thing, so I can count on you to try your best, I suppose. It’s the best offer anyone’s going to make to you here.”

There was a lake at the center of that park, and Chanyeol guessed we could try that one too - run towards the water while trying to find the correct intonation for the chords in his head and then wait to be taken out like a madman. Beyond that, he had more options: wander around, look by himself for mirrors, pinch his arm and hope to wake up. If given a proper thought, none of them seemed sensible choices, at least no more than the one Baekhyun was offering, with his easy smile and the faint sparks of curiosity and wariness in his only dark, visible eye. He seemed nice enough, the only strike of good luck in the surrealistic mess he had gotten himself into.

“You say you would offer me warm food and a bed,” he mentioned.

Baekhyun looked him from head to his his luckily-non-dripping toes. “And clothes. Decent clothes too. I don’t really want to risk an inspection because you look like an otherworldly big puppy, seriously.”

At that, Chanyeol decided to surrender. “Okay, but at least don’t make them itchy.”

There was light in Baekhyun’s gaze when he laughed, and it was one of the nicest things Chanyeol had seen. “Do you accept, then? Well then, that’s a deal we have!” He leaned towards him then, not close enough to touch him but still smiling nonetheless. “So, now that the issue is solved, are you ready to be shown the great wonders of Insomnia?”

\--

Moonlight Park had been located in the outskirts of Insomnia City, a vast surface of gravel paths below big trees, frequented by elderly ladies in their austere walking dresses, young couples and kids. It was calm and mostly silent, a beautiful place reminiscent of one of those vintage postcards Chanyeol’s mother used to love when he was a kid and they were happy, where the sunlight shone among the trees, more warm than hot, decorating his skin with delicate designs of light and shadows.

It all looked so pretty, so peaceful that Chanyeol could have almost forgotten that he was very far away from home if he just closed his eyes and remained still for a moment. He maybe would have, if he could, but as soon as he had accepted to work for him, Baekhyun had jumped from his seat on the fountain edge and had urged him to come along with a bright, bright smile on his face.

“Ah, you’ll see!” he exclaimed. “You never have been in the city before, so I need to show you! It never fails to impress, this place. It made such an impact on me when I first arrived that I decided I never wanted to leave! Come, come!”

Baekhyun took Chanyeol and his dripping wet coat to a metallic, square stop just outside the park main gates, lowly humming and he stood in line behind a gentleman in a three-piece-suit and a hat. Chanyeol wondered if there would be a bus coming until he saw the narrow incisions on the pavement before them, two thin, parallel lines following their path up and down the street.

“Oh, wow! Is this a tram station?” he whispered, loud enough for Baekhyun to hear but for the gentleman lining before them not to turn around and stare.

“Mist-powered tramways,” replied Baekhyun, pointing at the red and blue sign on the station shelter while he read out loud. “Trams stop here by request.”

“Are they safe for me to ride?”

“Absolutely! Cutting-edge technology. It will take us to the center before you can even stop to think how convenient it is, you’ll see.”

“I didn’t mean that, I meant—“ Chanyeol started, hopelessly pointing at his wet, shapeless coat and the jeans and sport shoes peeking under it. Once away from the solace provided by the trees in Moonlight Park, the sun was an unmerciful force, implacable on his face and scalp and making him sweat under his clothes. Despite the shreds of unnatural white mist, Insomnia’s summer was hot and slightly humid, too much for the three-piece-suit the gentleman before them was wearing, or even for Baekhyun’s perfectly buttoned up blue shirt, but absolute torture for someone wearing a coat, no matter how wet it was. He supposed people would stare - he would stare at himself if it were him - and he didn’t want them to have the chance to do it for long and find… inconsistencies.

“Oh, _that_. Nah,” whispered Baekhyun, shaking his head, tone playful but arms crossed. “Walk in with your head up, like you have every right to be where you are. You’re wearing a laborer’s coat. People won’t look past that if you don’t give them reasons, so…”

Baekhyun hadn’t been right about him going unnoticed. He might be wearing a cheap, ugly coat, but even in that city, Chanyeol was half a head taller than all the people inside the tram. To his (partial) luck, the tram was packed when it came, uncomfortably full with women in morning dresses and men in pressed shirts and bowler hats. People _were_ looking at him once the doors of their red and white car closed and Baekhyun had paid for both of their tickets with some crumpled notes, maybe because he had the kind of body that took up more space than everyone else’s, but their gazes went up to his face, not down to his feet.

“Come on, come on, don’t stay there,” Baekhyun told him once the car had started moving, pulling from his sleeve lightly. The space was crowded, but that boy seemed to have some kind of innate skill for finding tiny, empty spaces between the other passengers and advancing forward. Before he could even realize, Chanyeol - who had decided to imitate and follow like a good boy - found himself facing one of the windows close to the front of the car, with Baekhyun smiling widely at his side. “You need to see this, young man: first impressions matter. There’s this huge river, the Veil, that divides Insomnia City in two halves - the center is at the other side, you know? And it’s wonderful.”

 _There’s also a big river where I come from,_ thought Chanyeol, more tired than impressed, but he smiled back and said nothing. Once they left the stops along Moonlight Park behind, the tram took speed, moving along broad avenues and tall, grey buildings. He was about to close his eyes and try to doze off, lulled to sleep by the quiet melody in his head even if he was standing when something in the music changed.

He looked up and gasped, eyes round and wide. Baekhyun wasn’t in his field of vision, but Chanyeol could hear him chuckling. “Told you so,” he whispered.

Their little red car had taken and turn and was now rattling along one side of a massive bridge extending over a broad mass of water. Veil river was deep and of a pale, unnatural grey color, mist oozing from the water like it was boiling. At the other side lied what only could be the center of Insomnia City: tall skyscrapers, like dark fingers pointing to the summer sun, a cluster of blackish concrete and clear glass, embellished by the bright colors of enormous signs that announced clothes and perfumes, newspapers and soft drinks. _Welcome to the Black City of Insomnia, brightest light in the sky_ , the biggest banner read. _Be Blessed by the stars, beware of the Euphoria of the moon,_ the one beside it said. There were more, but Chanyeol didn’t stop to read them: he was too busy looking at the lights, at the tall grace of the buildings, at the traffic of zeppelins going around and between them, main avenues broad enough for them to fit.

“Oh, wow,” he whispered. He looked at Baekhyun out of the corner of his eye, but the other boy was also staring out the window, fingers of his right hand on the glass.

“Wow indeed,” he said.

Chanyeol’s music was louder now, livelier, like his very own original soundtrack. It was making his pulse quicken and race with excitement, as if the chords were also taking the view of the city in and wanted to explore, to know. For the first time, he completely realized that he was in a different place, in brand new world, a city he didn’t need to cross in a rush everyday to be in time for any of his two jobs, or for the classes he was failing. A place where his friends didn’t look at him with pity, and his mother didn’t try to lock him in and he didn’t have to keep the fact that he liked music in secret.

Perhaps someone like him wouldn’t be unlucky there. At least for the time that he could stay.

“You could think that one gets used once years pass but you don’t, really,” commented Baekhyun. Their car had crossed the bridge and was now moving across big avenues, fuller with people and old fashioned automobiles, and he gestured for Chanyeol to follow him towards the exit doors at the rear of the tram. “Come on, go, go down first.”

Even the tram car was endearing in its own way, Chanyeol thought as he descended, red and white and with its little tolling bell, that rang every time the doors fell open. There was publicity on its side too, half of the banner showing the wonders of a drink named Prosperity Cola and the other one advertising some tablets for Euphoria.

“What’s—“ he started to ask, but what interrupted by a soft thump on his side, hands grabbing his coat. When he turned his head to his left, he saw Baekhyun’s fingers on his sleeve as the boy regained his balance and cursed. “You okay?”

The other boy blinked up at him. “I tripped. The patch, you see: sometimes distances are tricky.” He released Chanyeol’s coat and placed his hands in his pockets. “Sorry about that.”

He was still cute. And nice to him. “It’s nothing. Where are we going, though? You talked about the police before, and there are many people here. They won’t call them on me, right? I don’t really want them to call.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Baekhyun placed his hat on his hair, looking half delighted, half smug. “We’ll go to my apartment and base of operations first, then we’ll get you some clothes. And then we can explore and get you ready for repaying your debt to me tomorrow. Does it sound right to you?”

“It sounds… okay. I guess.”

“Then I am happy we agree. Let’s go, young man!”

Baekhyun guided Chanyeol across the city streets, leaving the broad avenue they were in to move towards a net of side streets and alleys, still straight and clean but narrower, emptier. The buildings were still tall around them, with a cold, dark grace that Chanyeol didn’t remember from the ones he had seen back at his hometown. It made him feel a wave of claustrophobia for a second, like the walls were going to move and close on them and trap Baekhyun and him both inside a mass of concrete and steel.

But the other boy wasn’t letting him slow down, and Chanyeol swallowed the sensation and just followed, letting the sense of wonder take over. The walls of most buildings were almost black, the material polished like dark stone and heavily contrasting with the transparent glass of the windows and the shreds of white mist curling at their feet. Some people blent with the background, clad in grey clothes and hurrying on their way, head low, but others, like Baekhyun, stood out, with blue and green suits and pale pink morning dresses. And then there was him, Chanyeol, turning around, lips parted, when he saw an especially beautiful car stopped at the traffic lights. One part of him was still wondering if all that was a dream, and half-dreading, half hoping for the reverie to end and for him to wake up, but a tiny voice at the back of his mind was telling him to look, to enjoy, to feel like the main character of one of those open-world videogames he sold at the store he worked in.

_Play the shoujo manga heroine for a while, will you? Park Chanyeol, a boy lost in a different world._

Finally, Baekhyun stopped in front of a a building. It was more modest than the ones surrounding it, a little bit older and a little bit shorter, but with big windows and small balconies in the upper floors. The entrance hallway, where Chanyeol was ushered in spoke of old grandeur, with its tall ceiling and black and white marble floor, and was strangely reminiscent of his own apartment building back at home, only in a much better state.

“Well, here we are,” exclaimed Baekhyun, taking his hat off as soon as there was a ceiling above his head. There was an old man in a green uniform sitting in the concierge desk close to the elevators and the boy bowed his head slightly to him with a bright, flashing smile. “Good afternoon to you, Mr. Cho. How was the day? Busy?”

“Not really, Mr. Byun,” the man replied, eyes disappearing behind a constellation of wrinkles as he smiled back. “You know how things are around here: people come and go. Nothing new to tell.”

“A calm but uneventful day, huh? Are you leaving soon, then?”

“In a while. I want to buy myself dinner before the curfew today.”

“Oh, stars, that sounds like a good plan, sir. Maybe I’ll go to have dinner out, myself.” Baekhyun turned around with a hum, then, expression mildly playful. “By the way, Mr. Cho, this is my new assistant, Park Chanyeol. He’ll be staying with me for a while, so don’t be surprised if you see him coming and going, okay?”

“Ah, I am very glad to make your acquaintance, sir,” Mr. Cho said. If he had noticed how odd Chanyeol’s pants and shoes still looked in that general environment, he made no comment.

The boy hesitated for a second. “Nice to meet you too. Sir,” he muttered. He had no time for more small talk, because Baekhyun was waving the concierge goodbye and heading for the elevators before Chanyeol had even finished speaking.

“Get home safely, Mr. Cho! And enjoy your dinner, you deserve it!”

“Will do! Mr. Kim came to visit, by the way. He told me he’d use your spare key and wait for you at home.”

Baekhyun snorted. “Mr. Kim spends more time in my apartment than I do, it seems, but thanks for the notice! I’ll be going now. Will send him your regards.”

“Oh, please do!”

The elevator Baekhyun signaled Chanyeol to get into was an old thing, the door a metallic grill that the other boy pulled closed with a huff. He pushed the button for the 14th floor, and the yellow lights inside the lift flickered before the square, metal box set into motion. Chanyeol couldn’t help but to move back until his back was against one of the walls; that thing reminded him to one of those horror manor attractions in the amusement parks Sehun and Kyungsoo used to take him for his birthday: they told you a spooky story, then ushered you into an elevator only to let you fall once it reached the top floor. Chanyeol was almost certain that was not going to happen that time - _almost_ \- but he still tried to find purchase somewhere at his back.

“Mist powered?” he asked Baekhyun, indicating the general space of the elevator with a vague hand gesture when the other boy looked at him with his eyebrows raised.

“How did you guess?” he replied with an amused grin. He made no further comment, and Chanyeol didn’t try to speak - or to move - until the lift stopped and the gates opened with a clink. They were in a dim-lit corridor that smelled a bit of naphthalene, and Baekhyun walked down until the wooden door in the far end before turning towards him with an apologetic smile. “Um, Chanyeol. Do you mind much waiting outside for a while?” He grinned, wide, slightly bowing his head with his hands clasped in front of his chest, like he was praying. “You see, an associate of mine has invaded my apartment, according to Mr. Cho, and he would get a bit scared if I suddenly walked in with a Traveller. Let me explain it to him first, okay? I’ll be back to you as soon as he stops complaining.”

Chanyeol blinked, looking around. “Do you want me to stay here?”

“Only for a couple of minutes. I’ll treat you to dinner in compensation - if we have time before the curfew, that is. But I promise I won’t be long, so wait for me, okay?”

“…Okay.”

Baekhyun nodded, fished a silver key from his pocket and was soon gone at the other side of the door, closing it softly behind him. That left Chanyeol alone somewhere in that city for the first time since he had arrived. He felt… weird, too hot in his coat when he should have been feeling the cold of winter, strangely isolated without a phone in his pocket or red, lucky bracelets around his wrists. Both of them were probably abandoned on the snow back at the park at the other side of the mirror. He hoped Sehun had found his things, kept them with him so he could get them back when he returned.

Chanyeol sighed.

There were no windows in the corridor, and he didn’t feel confident enough to take that devilish elevator down, so he just leaned on the world opposite Baekhyun’s door and waited, letting the exhaustion set in, his limbs heavy. He could hear the murmur of voices at the other side of the door, too low for something besides the general tone of the conversation to be distinguished. There was a whisper who was unmistakably Baekhyun, and another voice that was raising by the second. Then, a scream.

“You’re a madman! There are some things that are never bound to work, I told you! What if he—“ someone else exclaimed, before Chanyeol lost track of the words.

“His hair is black!” Baekhyun protested loudly after a while. “Listen to me…”

Chanyeol’s hand rose up to sink in the locks falling over his forehead. His hair was black alright, since his mother had never been okay with him dyeing it. Baekhyun’s friend was protesting again, his voice low and insistent, and the boy was about getting closer to the door and actually eavesdropping when he heard the latch being swung open.

“He is my guest, so I’ll do what I want,” he stated, still looking at somewhere at his back as his face became visible. His uncovered eye opened wide when he saw Chanyeol exactly at the other side of the door, but he composed his expression quickly. “Hey, hello again. You can come in now.”

The apartment beyond the threshold was small and cramped, as full of boxes and packaged items as the underground warehouse where Chanyeol woke up had been. For a place so packed, it was strangely devoid of furniture: there was only a small coffee table - with books and notebooks and a chipped tea set scattered on its glass and wood surface, a cream colored foot lamp and a dark beige sofa. A man in brown trousers and a white-sleeved shirt was sitting on it, eyes dark and following Chanyeol as he stopped in the middle of the room, swallowing.

“Um, hi?” he said. The stranger didn’t reply, and Chanyeol just stood there, slipping his hands into his pockets.

“Oh, come on, Jongdae, don’t be like this. The young man’s new in town, make an effort!” protested Baekhyun as he came to stand next to Chanyeol. His friend, however, remained silent, observing Chanyeol like one would regard an especially annoying cousin who had appeared uninvited at his birthday party. _“Really.”_

At Baekhyun’s almost-offended expression, the stranger finally spoke. “Are you a Mirror Traveler?” he asked. His fractions were soft, with a cat-like look onto them, and would have probably seemed friendly if it wasn’t for his frown and the thin line of his lips. “So do you come from the other world, then? How did you appear here then?”

“I was absorbed by a frozen pond?” replied Chanyeol, wishing he could at least sound convincing. “Look, I didn’t exactly want to come to this place.”

“But he did. He appeared in my mirror and broke it,” Baekhyun chimed in. “So I hired him, he’s staying. ‘Cause we both need to find another one and we are short on working hands for our Sunday party. I told you.”

Jongdae clicked his tongue, ignoring him. “Do you know who Haze is?” he questioned, eyes heavy on Chanyeol.

“What…? Who?”

“What about the Exalted?”

“Is that supposed to be a person?” muttered Chanyeol. “People? Or—“

“Jongdae, please, he came from the other side of the mirror, of course he doesn’t know!” Baekhyun interrupted him, his voice the sharpest since Chanyeol had known him. He wasn’t smiling anymore, and hardness looked strange on the soft features of his face. “You’re making a scene out of choices that aren’t yours to take. Be nice to my guest, will you?”

“I thought he was going to be your assistant,” Jongdae said, then sighed. “Okay, very well, you’re as much an adult as I am, so I’ll have to trust your judgement, Byun. So, dear Traveller, I am Kim Jongdae, bond agent and Baekhyun’s associate. Welcome to Insomnia City, the brightest light in the sky _and_ the city where you can’t get out at night.”

“Park Chanyeol,” Chanyeol replied. “Wait, can’t we get out? Why?” The view at the other side of Baekhyun’s window looked astonishing; he had hoped to see the streetlights once the sun set. “It’s because of that curfew thing the concierge mentioned?”

“Orders from the Marshall’s office. They’re no fun: they _love_ forbidding stuff,” Baekhyun explained with a shrug. “Going out at night, mist-powered magic objects that are not necessary, magic usage in general… There’s a long, boring list somewhere.”

“You will get used,” added Jongdae. “But anyway, what can you do? Do you know how to defend yourself in a fight? Are you Blessed like Baekhyun?”

_Why would I want that?_

“I’m unlucky,” replied Chanyeol. Jongdae squinted his eyes so much they turned into slits, so the boy proceeded to add something more. Something… interesting. “I love music too. I can… play instruments.”

“How nice,” Jongdae muttered. Then he turned to Baekhyun. “I thought all Mirror Travelers were Blessed?”

“I’m not sure; it’s not like I know a lot of them.”

“Well, he can play the piano for you, this one. That’ll save your life for sure.”

“Hey, you know we love music here in Insomnia. He will be useful, you’ll see.”

“Of course he will. Besides, what’s with that hair?”

Chanyeol’s hand rose to his dark curls once more. “It’s a perm!” he protested, before Baekhyun could reply to Jongdae’s statement and continue with that pointless conversation. “It’s stylish, I like it.”

“Huh,” muttered Jongdae, taking his time to check his whole look again. “Now that you mention it, it’s not that bad. Maybe I should try to perm my hair myself. It would be a better option than remaining here and just trying to solve all this mess you got into, Byun.”

“It’s not that messy. I told you, I’ll bring Chanyeol to help me with the party on Sunday so you can just… mind your own business this weekend. Enjoy your free time.”

“You’re not even testing the boy?”

“What do you want me to do to him? He just came through the mirror.”

“You’re unbelievable!”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Hey, guys,” whispered Chanyeol, just because he thought they maybe needed to be reminded. “I’m here.”

“Yeah, and I’m leaving,” groaned Jongdae. “I will check on you after the weekend, Baekhyun. Give me a call if something happens.”

“Will do, will do,” surrendered Baekhyun as his friend got up from his seat and strode to the exit. Jongdae glared at Chanyeol as he passed, his eyes still black and hard, but he said nothing else as he left, shutting the door closed. “As least he didn’t slammed it. Much.”

Chanyeol was still standing in the middle of the room, but he tentatively moved towards the sofa when Baekhyun half sat, half lain on it. “Why does your friend hate me?”

“He’s my associate, at my company, and he does the numbers, the accounting and that stuff, and even though I’m grateful for his services sometimes we don’t agree in the way I do things. Not a big deal.” Baekhyun sighed, closing his eyes, and patted the sofa cushion next to his for Chanyeol to sit. “He usually is a pretty nice guy. Don’t mind him, he’ll warm up to you.”

“Hope so,” whispered Chanyeol. He didn’t know if air conditioning existed in that city, that world, but surely as hell Baekhyun’s apartment wasn’t equipped with a unit, because the living room was even hotter than the streets outside had been. He removed his coat then, and his hoodie after that, and when he looked towards the sofa he saw Baekhyun watching him, his eye peeked open, just a bit. There was a closed type of curiosity in the handsome features of his face. It was flattering. Unnerving. Strange. “Uh, can I open the window?”

At that, Baekhyun smiled, so soft. “Yeah. Weather is terrible at this time of the year, but autumn will come soon, so it’ll get more bearable in a couple of weeks.”

“Aren’t you hot?”

“A bit, but I’m used to it.” He still observed Chanyeol as he struggled to open the window, his expression lightening up in amusement when he managed to do it with a curse. The air was fresher outside, and the boy almost groaned in satisfaction when it hit his face - the summer in that place was even worse than what it had been at home, for god’s sake.

“Are we going out again?” he asked.

“Yeah. For clothes, and for dinner, before the curfew call. I’ll go search for some spare stuff of mine, some trousers that don’t look too short and ridiculous on you, and then we can get out. Just let me rest for a moment and we’ll be out, young man.”

He still felt a little stupid, standing in the middle of that room like the second foot lamp of the place, so he accepted Baekhyun’s previous offer and went to sit where he was, letting out a short, incredulous laugh. “Why are you calling me _young man_? You don’t look much older than me, when were you born?”

“Twenty-two years ago.”

“So we’re the same age.”

“Yeah.” Baekhyun stifled a yawn. “But how do you want me to call you? Mr. Park.”

The name had a strange ring to it, especially when Baekhyun said it with that small hint of amusement, but Chanyeol shook his head, scoffing. “Chanyeol will do,” he stated, hesitating after he dared a look at Baekhyun’s face. “Or is that weird here? In this place?”

“Not really,” replied the other boy after giving it thought for a while. “If we’re close. But you’re my assistant, huh? So I’ll call you whatever you’re comfortable with as long as it’s not indecent.”

Chanyeol decided not to press further into the decency issue. “So, you have magic in this world but you can’t use it?” he asked instead. Baekhyun closed his eyes again and nodded.

“Not many of us are Blessed anyway, and most of the ones who are don’t have big, flashy powers at all, so we are not missing out on much, but yeah. There’s a general lack of mist, so all the energy we get from it has to go to machinery. We can’t waste it, throw it around in unnecessary things, or that’s what the marshal says, at least. How much I agree, I’m not sure.”

“Do you know I am not a wizard of any kind, right?”

Baekhyun blinked, staring at him in surprise first, then like he was fighting the urge to laugh. “You are a Mirror Traveler, you can’t exactly go around saying that you’re a normal citizen. Most people can’t do that. Looking glasses are strong magic items here, number one on the list of forbidden stuff. If you have powers beyond using them to travel across remains a mystery, but it’s not improbable.”

“I don’t think I do.”

“So you’re just as normal as they come.”

“Well yeah, I only excel at being unlucky and in… music, I guess. So maybe I’m not exactly what you expected but—“

“Ah, ah,” Baekhyun interrupted him. “But you are more than enough for what I need of you.”

“And what’s that?”

The other boy’s grin turned impish. “Ah, it’s easy,” he said. “Just storytelling.”

 

* * *

 

**Third Act - Gradual**   
_In memoria æterna erit iustus,  
ab auditione mala non timebit._

 

Baekhyun hadn’t been lying when he had told Chanyeol he wanted him to work. What he hadn’t specified was the kind of job he was going to require Chanyeol to do, or for how many hours a day.

“You are abusing your power,” he whispered, loud enough for the other boy to hear. Baekhyun, obviously, did, but he didn’t look worried (or ashamed) at all when his face showed up from the open driver window.

“I’ve provided your food and for your clothes and for your bed, I told you I was going to demand something in exchange of you.”

“I’ve been working two part-time jobs since I’ve had age for it and I’ve never been this tired.”

“Oh, really? Aren’t we exaggerating?”

Perhaps Chanyeol was, if only a little, tiny bit. Because what Baekhyun had wanted, more than an _assistant_ , was a labor boy, a working hand to move a whole collection of very well packed bundles around. _‘I’ve got my own pickup truck, you see, but I need to take all the things we’ll need for the party to the venue and I can’t do that by myself,”_ he had told Chanyeol on Friday night, after they had returned to Baekhyun’s apartment after dinner and the sun had finally set down. _“That’s where your help comes in.”_

It didn’t sound _that_ difficult, and Chanyeol didn’t have many choices anyway, so he had gone with the other boy on Saturday morning. How many things Baekhyun could have that needed to be moved to a party venue? One box of dishes, another one full of cups and a bag of decorations? It would had been like that, perhaps, if Baekhyun was a usual guy and Chanyeol was a lucky person, but of course things never went as he expected them to, so what he was told to carry around and load was a whole set of very neatly packed bundles. Irregular in shape and size. Not to say _heavy as hell_.

Baekhyun had lots of those: the ones in his apartment, the boxes in the warehouse where Chanyeol had woken up. They also needed, he told him, to take ‘shippings’ from different districts around town, which meant he drove around and smiled a lot while Chanyeol loaded things onto the back of the truck and cursed him under his breath.

The boy had thought that kind of physical torture - under the hellish humid heat of summer, no less - would be over after the curfew on Saturday night, but he had been wrong. Baekhyun had treated him to dinner after his long day and taken him home before the sun set, but as soon as they had crossed the threshold of his apartment he had grinned at him with his best, winning smile, and Chanyeol had known that his hopes were futile. “Let’s work hard tomorrow too, okay?” he had said, and he was too nice to be hated, but Chanyeol had surely tried.

_You mean, let’s make Chanyeol do all the hard work while you sit in your car and charm everyone, don’t you?_

So there they were again, Baekhyun on the driver’s seat of his ramshackle, red pickup truck, with its round wheels, long body and chapped paint, while Chanyeol finished loading a shapeless package that probably was heavier than he was onto his back side.

“Are you okay?” Baekhyun called out to him, head still peeking out the window.

“The pretty shirt you bought me is all sweaty. I am sorry to say, but I’m not acceptably dressed for your party anymore.”

“That’s why a bought you a suit for that one. Sweaty or not, don’t think you can attend an event like El Dorado’s illustrious party in labor trousers and suspenders, young man. Or skip it; you’re coming.” Baekhyun looked utterly satisfied with himself as Chanyeol finished loading his things and practically collapsed on the passenger’s seat. “Oh, come on, we are almost finished. One last trip and the heavy, ugly part of the job will be over.”

“Except because you also want me to attend to your guests.”

“But that’s fun.”

“Maybe for you,” groaned Chanyeol. Maybe Baekhyun was the type to love entertaining guests - he looked the part, at least, with that rich boy kind of face and his prim and proper clothes, including a perfectly pressed, long sleeved dress shirt, as if he was invulnerable to heat - but Chanyeol had never been the type to party. He enjoyed concerts, and gigs, and going out with his friends once in a while, but he avoided university parties like they were a den full of demons. He had gone once, at age eighteen, when he still thought he could try to be popular in college, and the results had been so catastrophic that, even years later, he refused to talk about it all. It all had involved beer. And a table. And a trendy song with rated, explicit lyrics. “I’m cursed to unluckiness. Unlucky people love to stay at home and do interesting stuff like reading, or playing videogames, or staying out of the path of misfortune.”

“Um, but you were unlucky in the other world,” commented Baekhyun as he started the engine. “Maybe you’ll be lucky in this side of the mirror.”

He was grinning so wide and looking so pretty that Chanyeol didn’t have the courage to refute his theories. Even though he felt like Baekhyun would eventually kill them both, considering that he drove like a madman. “I would feel more than blessed if you let me take the wheel.”

“Do you know how to drive one of these?”

Chanyeol had gotten his license, and loved driving Sehun’s car around, but then Sehun’s car looked approximately one hundred years more modern than the thing Baekhyun was piloting, and didn’t have a motor that ran on magical mist. “Well, not exactly.”

“Then you’re not touching it. It’s Jongdae’s, you know? If I am going to get scolded for crashing on a wall, I prefer to be the one to blame.”

“Why would you crash anything against a wall?”

“It’s not like I’m trying to!”

Baekhyun’s magical trip at full speed took them down the street, from the tall, black building where they had taken their last set of packages to one of the main avenues of the city center, heading out to their usual unloading spot. It was early afternoon and the streets were only moderately crowded at that time, which allowed Baekhyun to behave like a kamikaze at his own leisure, speeding up with obvious delight as soon as he found his way empty enough.

Chanyeol decided to look out the window, even though the people and buildings were considerably blurred when Baekhyun was not forced to stop at a traffic light, or to stop pushing the accelerator to the floor because he had to share his road with more sensible people. Even after a couple of days driving around, Insomnia was a sight to see, all lean, black buildings, giant, colorful ads and fancy people in their fancy clothes.

 _Welcome to Insomnia, the Black City, brightest light in the sky_. _Be Blessed by the stars, beware of the Euphoria of the moon._

They had been driving for around ten minutes when Chanyeol heard the noise, the shrill and repetitive toll of a bell: a sound he hadn’t heard before, not exactly, but that was reminiscent of something absurdly familiar. The window at his side was open, so he looked out and frowned. _Of course_ something like that had to happen sooner or later. He was surprised they haven’t been stopped four or five times the day before. “Baekhyun,” he called. “I think the police is following us, alarms on and all.”

Baekhyun cursed so colorfully that Chanyeol _had_ to stare at him. “Oh, stars,” he added later. “I have to stop, don’t I?”

“Why are you even surprised?”

Chanyeol feared for a moment that Baekhyun would abandon every trace of sensible behavior and just speed up and go, but he started to slow down until their pickup came to a stop and then he waited, fingers drumming on the wheel and expression shifting from alert to annoyance until it settled on a mask of cheerful calm.

“Hey mister agent!” he saluted, as soon as a man in a black uniform came to stop in front of his open window. “Having a nice day so far?”

He looked like the semblance of innocence, a perfectly good boy who had just decided to go out for a stroll. _Wow, what a liar_ , Chanyeol though. He didn’t know if he should admire him or facepalm - especially because they had been caught pretty much red-handed and absolutely lacked an excuse.

“Excuse me sir, but you were surpassing the allowed speed limit.”

Baekhyun’s eyes widened. “Oh, really? I was in a hurry, I probably didn’t realize I was speeding up a bit too much. My apologies.”

Chanyeol would have snorted, hadn’t he been sure that doing so would grant Baekhyun the Insomnia version of a fine.

“Being in a rush is no excuse for endangering traffic,” the policeman continued. He wore a black uniform jacket with three embroidered silver stars over his heart, three more on his right sleeve, and was young, probably around their age, with dark hair and tan skin. He looked directly at Baekhyun, who remained all relaxed on the driver’s seat, and frowned. “Is your sight okay, sir? Why is your eye covered?”

“I’m blind in my left eye,” explained Baekhyun, tone neutrally kind. “I lost my whole eyeball, in fact. Terrible work accident, you see, when I used to do my turns at the factories in Prosperity a couple of years ago. My driving license is in order, however, if you want to check.”

“Could you show me?” the other man asked, and Baekhyun proceeded to fish some neatly folded papers from the glove compartment, sending a glance in Chanyeol’s general direction before he turned around to deliver them. “There you go. I’ve got a special permission, issued by Colonel Suho himself.”

“I see.” The young policeman looked rather impressed, as he gave Baekhyun his papers back after a check. “Where were you headed, sir?”

“To the North District, to make a delivery. It’s my last duty for the day.”

“Very well. Can I check your cargo?”

Chanyeol saw Baekhyun’s fingers stop drumming on the wheel for a heartbeat. “Oh, you certainly could,” the boy replied, opening his door to jump outside. After a second of vacillation and the flash of a new warning gaze from the other boy, Chanyeol decided to remain where he was, turning around on his seat to observe the scene out of the back window. “Aren’t you all supposed to be in Euphoria patrols these days?” Baekhyun was asking, angelic smile on his face. “I would not like to distract you from your duties, mister, not with the city as it is. I thought there had been a new outbreak these days?”

“The streets are safe,” Chanyeol heard the policeman reply, the remark half curt, half hesitant. “Please don’t worry, sir.”

“Oh, I don’t.” The pickup truck shook under Baekhyun’s weight when the boy jumped on its backside. “I trust you all to keep us safe. It’s just that I can’t help but worry, sometimes. I was talking to some friends the other day, Colonel Suho and others for dinner, and of course they trust themselves to protect us, but they do have their own concerns as well, you know? And I do, too. I have to move around a lot, and I keep many valuable rolls of fabric in my warehouses. What if something happens at night, I wonder? I can’t leave anyone to guard them after the curfew, of course.”

“Of course,” the policeman repeated, voice weak.

“So you see, agent…”

“Kim.”

“Agent Kim. The Colonel told me that they have enforced vigilance, but this isn’t good for the business at all. My clients are upset, you see, and that makes me most concerned. You know how the rich are, sometimes - they want everything now, and get angry if they don’t, and the stars know they have been growing more and more annoyed these months because the curfews don’t allow them to be social once the sun’s down. They are careless by nature, as I like to say, and have the tendency of screaming at everyone when things don’t go their way.”

“I… suppose.”

“They can be scary sometimes. Ah, ah, but don’t let me entertain you, you must be busy, and I’m in a hurry too.” Chanyeol saw Baekhyun untie one of the bigger packages and take a roll of red silk out. “You wanted to inspect my cargo, right? Well then, look at these. They were personally ordered by a certain Ms. Lee of the North District. She wanted them urgently, along many more - I think she has a party. She’s a bit of a complainer; she’s family with the Colonel, so I guess she gets away with everything by whining into his ear. _Fire this guy, demote the other!_ She’s all bossy - and pretty, which is a shame, because that combination makes people listen to her even if her personality is not that nice. What do you think about the silk? Appropriate for a fine lady?”

“It’s, um, nice.”

“Do you need to inspect the rest of the cargo? Please, feel free to do so.” Baekhyun gestured towards the assortment of packages piled up at the back of their truck as if he felt actually excited about the prospect. “They are all for her - wardrobe stuff, you know? And makeup. She was very pouty and frowny when he she asked me to bring them to her within, but I bet she can wait if it is for law enforcement. Colonel Suho knows best, so even if she goes crying at him, he’ll know we had no other choice but to make her wait. And still, I hope she doesn’t fire me.” Baekhyun sighed, a hand on his chest. “But well, do you need me to unpack any other bundle? What about this one?”

The poor policeman had his hands full of red silk and didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He shook his head, eyes wide open. “Ah, no, sir, don’t worry. This was just a routine check, please proceed.”

“Oh, but are you sure?”

“I don’t want to delay you further. Please send Ms. Lee my regards.”

“Will do. Also to Colonel Suho. Will tell him how of a nice fellow you are. I have decided I like you.” Baekhyun jumped from the back side of the track after packing the silk back into its place and headed towards the driver seat, a broad smile on his face. “Good luck with all that Euphoria duty. The stars know you’ll need it!” he exclaimed before starting up the engine.

To Chanyeol’s relief, this time he started driving at a normal, reasonable speed. Baekhyun looked so proper and so happy, smiling like the main character of an old automobile advertisement until they took the first turn. Then he sighed.

“Oops, that was close,” he whispered.

“Are we really loading merchandise for that Ms. Lee person?” Chanyeol asked with a frown. “Because I’ve been carrying all those packages around for two days and most of them didn’t feel like fabric.”

Baekhyun shrugged, hand still on the wheel. “Well, Ms. Lee does exist, but she doesn’t wear red silk anymore. She’s like… eighty-five years old?”

“Is she even related to that Colonel guy?”

“She could be. I guess. The world can be surprising sometimes.”

“So that whole speech was made of—”

“Creativity.” Baekhyun finished the sentence before Chanyeol could pronounce the word _lies_ out loud. “People tend to get overwhelmed if one is too nice, and too talkative, and claim to know the right people. That poor boy, he looked so young - he probably was scared of annoying the wrong people, and well, _I_ didn’t want him to open any other package. That would have been a mess.”

“What are we even carrying?”

“Things. Many things.”

“Illegal things?” Baekhyun had talked about _smuggling a mirror_ when they had met, and Chanyeol still didn’t know what kind of work he did, specifically. His apartment looked small and messy, and his job consisted in moving things around in that disaster of a car, but he was as well dressed as a young fine gentleman, and had money enough to spare it in things like buying Chanyeol a new wardrobe or having dinner out. “Am I helping you to be illegal? Are you a thief? A con artist?”

“Nope. I just… organize parties and talk to people.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Jongdae’s usually the one who imports the magitec items illegally. He does that _and_ accountant stuff,” stated Baekhyun, cheerfully. He turned to look at Chanyeol’s shocked face, his face lit up in a big, friendly grin. “The mirror, though, was entirely my doing. I was so proud of myself until you came and broke it - I had the most perfect offer for it, you know?”

Chanyeol blinked. “So you really _are_ a smuggler.”

“I prefer to call myself a dealer of dreams.”

“So I got absorbed by a frozen lake and appeared in another world right into the arms of a criminal?”

“Hey, don’t be like that, young man. Your whole presence here is kind of… illegal, I told you, so I am the best friend you could have in this side of the looking glass. I would have turned you in if I happened to be all just and righteous, or thrown you away if I was too rude. Besides, every man has to live, don’t you think? And I do it to the best of my ability. People want things, and I offer: it’s my own way of saving the world, my boy, I always dream big and I share those fantasies. We all have something that we want, even if it’s not completely okay to crave it. What is it for you? Don’t you have a sin?”

The melody in Chanyeol’s head was cheerful then, as upbeat as anyone would have expected the soundtrack of a car ride to be. It was so faint, just a harmless sound - never once grown louder since the boy had arrived at Insomnia. His nightmares had also vanished, back to the darker corners of his subconscious, where they remained. But that didn’t mean they were gone forever. Not necessarily. “I like music,” he replied. “I like music very much, I have always liked it. Even when I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Ah, true, you told me before! We love music here; you could play something for us once the party starts! Do you know violin? Piano? Instruments aren’t easy to come by here, but music’s only forbidden after the curfew, so they _can_ be bought.”

“I could, I guess, but why is there even a curfew?”

Baekhyun took a small while to answer. “Because the marshall doesn’t like anything remotely indecent - which includes everything even remotely fun. _Beware of the Euphoria of the moon_ \- haven’t you seen the signs all around?”

Of course Chanyeol had seen them - they were almost everywhere, but he hadn’t know what they meant. “What is that Euphoria thing supposed to be?”

“A consequence,” replied Baekhyun. They had left the center of Insomnia behind and were moving steadily towards the north. The buildings were less impressive there - still black but more modest, shorter, with smaller glass windows - and the pedestrians rushed to their duties without looking up from their feet. “Long story short, we used to be ruled by wizards before. The Blessed and all that jazz. And everything was good and nice until one of said wizards started to fuck up really, really bad. Euphoria’s one consequence of what he did, the lack of mist is another; the marshall establishing a curfew and banning one thing after another to try to avoid the unavoidable is the third one, plus a major pain in the ass. But well, I make a living out of it so who am I to complain, huh?”

“I don’t… I don’t think I get it.”

“You don’t have to, not in depth. Aren’t you leaving? Euphoria’s not really something you want to be involved with, and you’ll be safe from it as long as you follow my advice and stay indoors at night. Don’t overthink stuff too much; you’ll be home in a week at most, if everything goes well and we can find ourselves a mirror.”

Chanyeol nodded, the next, obvious question stuck in his throat. _Why indoors? What are walls keeping away?_ Baekhyun seemed nice enough to reply, if asked conveniently, but the boy wasn’t sure of wanting to ask out loud. In his childhood dreams and reality, his song was the one thing that had always opened windows and doors between home and that place, and he had always felt safe when the mirrors had shifted by day, but he had opened gates to that world at night before, and he knew more than well how that experience had ended.

_Your father will die, your sister will die. Your mother is a madwoman and you’re her rightful son._

He should still be doubting himself. Perhaps all that was a dream and his mother’s demons had finally come for him, but everything was too clear, too detailed, Baekhyun’s face too expressive, his movements and voice and clothes too… real to be a product of his imagination. He had slept in Insomnia City for two nights, in a nightmare-less slumber, and he had opened his eyes in Baekhyun’s tiny guest room every morning.

He was gone, spirited away from home. He had to be. He wondered what his mother would be doing, then, if Sehun and Kyungsoo would have taken care of her when they couldn’t find him. _My lovely boy knows that we have forbidden music in this place to protect him. There’s dark magic in it._

Chanyeol shuddered.

“Hey, you okay?” someone asked, and the boy realized that Baekhyun had finally stopped the car and was looking at him, frown drawn in a semblance of seriousness that didn’t feel like him at all. He smiled, however, when Chanyeol finally reacted. “You were grimacing there for a sec. Not attractive at all, you know? It’ll leave creases, young man.”

“I told you not to call me that,” Chanyeol protested. “And anyway, it’s not like I’m that much attractive.”

Baekhyun let out an incredulous laugh. “I do believe you clean up well. Haven’t you been told? And we need you to look the best you can. Who’s gonna charm all my old ladies at the party, if not? I am a very charming young man, if I say so myself, but I can only be at one place at a time.”

Baekhyun was openly smiling at him now, the most beautiful boy in the world, and a little, tiny part in Chanyeol’s brain could feel his own descent into doom. In his experience, pretty boys were mostly, generally, evil. “Baekhyun?” he asked. “What did you mean when you said you wanted me to work in _storytelling_?”

“Oh, that. You’ll see soon. You’ll see.”

—

The party El Dorado was co-hosting was supposed to be a meeting place for the wealthy. And the people attending _were_ rich, Chanyeol supposed, judging by the expensive suits for the men, the long, flowy night dresses for the ladies and the amount of diamonds, pearls and feathery headdresses he was seeing all around, but he would have expected that kind of people to have their party in big, high ceilinged mansions at the outskirts of town, not in the basement of some absolutely random building in a random street in the North District.

“Can they even park their cars around here?” he had asked Baekhyun in a whisper while they were unloading the last crates into what he had believed to be a simple underground storeroom, hours before. He had recently discovered that it was connected to what looked like a bar, and a ballroom, and a party room, all put together. One of Heechul’s places, Baekhyun had called it.

“They don’t need to park their cars, they have chauffeurs.”

“Oh yeah, chauffeurs. How could I have possibly forgotten about the chauffeurs.”

Baekhyun laughed at him, endearing. “You have a terrible pronunciation,” he noted. “When it comes to that word.”

“I guess? Sorry? I move around in metro every day, so I guess I don’t have to say it out loud.”

“Don’t worry, it adds up to your accent. It’s exotic.”

“Do I have an accent now? I speak just like you.”

He wasn’t sure if Baekhyun was kidding or not, but he didn’t have much time for thinking as things were. It was late afternoon, and the other boy was grinning at him from the middle of the storage room, neatly dressed in a very expensive-looking striped dark blue suit with his own matching bowtie. He had tried to convince Chanyeol to wear stripes too (not to mention a bowtie. Chanyeol had been about to ran away when Baekhyun had suggested him to join him in the bowtie thing), but the last thing the boy had wanted was to attend to some kind of Gossip Girl party looking like Jack Skellington’s lost twin. So now Chanyeol was wearing black, and a tie, which was acceptable, but still needed to get out of the storage room and socialize, which could go very well… or not.

“Okay, okay, listen,” Baekhyun told him. “I mentioned it to you, I believe, but we are not the only ones hosting this party. There are more people, more small business like ours, all under Heechul’s wings. So here’s the thing: there’ll be talking, there’ll be alcohol, there’ll be dancing and an auction. So we’ve got goods, and people here are rich, but have limited money. They won’t be buying everything, only the rarest, the fanciest and the best, so we have to convince them that our goods are exactly what they are looking for. You get me?”

Chanyeol had worked in a videogame shop before that whole mess had started, and he was passionate about that. Clients always listened when he told them to _check the store’s collection of second-hand titles_ , but he supposed that rich guys in an alternate universe wouldn’t be as easy to convince.

“How much time do we even have for this party? When’s the curfew today?”

“The party starts once the curfew rings,” explained Baekhyun, hands in his pockets.

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Told you. Stay indoors, don’t go out until the darkness fades. Party up until the break of dawn and you’ll be safer than safe.”

Baekhyun opened the storage door for him, inviting him to head into the main room. It was already crowded, much more than it had been five minutes before, and to the point that one could almost forget that there were no windows in the floor, that the chandelier in the middle of the room hanging from a not-so-high ceiling because they were actually hiding underground. Chanyeol followed Baekhyun like an oversized lost puppy while the other boy greeted a couple of old ladies here, a man with an ugly mustache there, took a glass of a clear, sparkling drink when the other boy grabbed it from the tray a waiter was carrying and offered it to him. There was a small band, playing something jazzy in a raised stage in one corner of the room, and the beat of Chanyeol’s song adapted to the melody, embracing and enhancing it.

_Soul melody. Soul melody it’s called. Murder melody._

“How am I supposed to make all these people buy your stuff?” murmured Chanyeol, leaning in to whisper the words in Baekhyun’s ear. “You probably didn’t know this, but I haven’t ever talked to someone with so many pearls and diamonds on them, and I’m not precisely suave. How do you expect me not to screw up?”

“We are in a party and the general story of your life is interesting. So just… you know, indulge them.”

“Do you want me to tell them, what? That I come from another world. I thought you told me it was illegal.”

“Yeah, like the cup of champagne in your hands and the music you’re listening too and the existence of the venue you’re in. Just enjoy your life, young man! For all you know, a tram could run all over you and end it tomorrow!” Baekhyun shrugged, stepping back with a lopsided smile. “They probably won’t believe you anyway, so tell them how your city is! They will be so impressed about your common, mundane daily life. They just want a story!”

It sounded easy enough, Chanyeol thought. He could do that, he should be able to. “How is this related to getting a mirror, though?” he asked. “Are we going to buy it here?”

“Nope. It’s not that easy. This party is you working for me. This party is also me talking with contacts and getting info. So get ready, the curtain’ll fall anytime soon now.”

The attendees were all neatly dressed and talking among them in small groups, glasses in hand, but they weren’t drinking that much, they weren’t dancing. They were mostly still, faces turned towards the main raised stage of the room, which was completely empty but for a single man in a white suit, leaning against the bottom wall in silence. Chanyeol hadn’t seen him at first, despite his suit being flashy among the flashy, his hair longish and combed back.

“What are all these people waiting for? Is that guy gonna speak?” whispered Chanyeol, and Baekhyun shook his head, face lightening up.

“Not him, he’s just there to make an announcement. They all are waiting for the thrill of the forbidden, and that will come soon enough.”

 _And what’s that supposed to be?_ The question was in Chanyeol’s lips, but then he heard it. The sound, the loud ring, coming from the floor, the walls, the air around them and growing louder, _louder,_ from a faint whisper to the warning roar of an alarm.

He had felt a wave of fear sinking in his bones when he had heard the sound for the first time, two sunsets ago, and he had believed then that he would get used, learn to ignore it when he spent more days in Insomnia City. _It’s just a curfew_ , the sensible part of his brain always thought, precisely because he wanted to believe it, but deeper within, he knew it was more than that. His insides reacted to the low sound of the alarm - pure instinct, some sort of raw, primeval fear - and as soon as it started the only thing he wanted was for it to _end,_ to be at home and cover his ears, and hold his breath until it all was over.

But he wasn’t at home now, and neither was he in Baekhyun’s apartment. He was surrounded by people, he was indoors, he was safe, but he still felt _wrong_ while the alarm sound lasted, and didn’t realize he was holding his breath until it faded.

The whole room was shrouded in silence, the smartly dressed party attendees frozen in place with their glasses in their hands and their lips pressed tight.

 _It’s produced by magitec,_ Baekhyun had explained the first night. _The sensation will pass._ And Chanyeol repeated it like a mantra, like he had done in his childhood when he had wanted his own song to stop. It never worked, not completely, but it made things easier. _It’ll pass, it’ll pass, it’ll pass, it’ll pass._

The nausea stopped, eventually, but Chanyeol remained still, eyes on the floor, until someone spoke, and the boy looked up only to see the man in the white three-piece suit in the middle of the main stage. He was making his announcement in a clear voice, an undertone of carelessness under the current of his words, like he was, in fact, giving a set of orders but didn’t mind at all if they were carried out or not.

“You’re all here in the utmost secret,” he started, “and came to get what daylight in this city can’t offer, and you crave. There will be time for that, my friends, but what’s sin and crime without a little fun? So let’s drink, let’s dance, let’s enjoy, and business will come when alcohol turns acquaintances into friends and enemies to lovers! Three cheers for the dark and the stars!”

The crowd raised their glasses, all at once. “Three cheers for the dark and the stars!” they screamed in reply. Chanyeol was one second too late, but muttered the words under his breath anyway, looking around to see if the other guests were drinking. In fact, they were, voices louder than before, laughter more prominent, and the boy didn’t understand much about smuggling, or clandestine parties, or forbidden goods, or even about the customs in Insomnia City, but he couldn’t help but ask.

“Baekhyun,” he called, and saw the boy wetting his lips as well. “Maybe this is a bit stupid but… Shouldn’t people be sober for doing business?”

The other man looked at him like he was the cutest, most endearing child. “It depends on how impulsive you want them to be,” he stated, and then raised his glass. “But hey, my boy, you’re here to help with the mood, so go on and join the fun!”

\--

Perhaps Chanyeol shouldn’t have drunk. Okay, maybe it would have been fine if he had drunk a little bit - maybe one or two glasses - but the champagne was so good, and the waiters were bringing _canapés_ and cold cuts and he needed something to drown them with. So maybe he should have either cursed Baekhyun (who was totally making him drunk because he wanted him chatty) or the open bar, or perhaps the music - the one the band was playing or his own - but he was well past the point of caring and he was having _fun_.

“Let me introduce you to my friends,” Baekhyun told him, eyes bright and cheeks red. “I knew a couple of them like half an hour ago, but they’re really nice friends. Good people, good. And the other ones are even better.” He led him towards a small group of people: a brightly dressed old woman and three men, one in blue, one in black, one in a very hideous shade of dark red. “This is Ms Lee, we talked about her. And this is Mr Kim, and Mr Zhang, and the one over there’s Mr Huang Zitao, quite the dandy, he’s in the fashion business,” Baekhyun lowered his voice to pretend to be whispering to Chanyeol, even if his tone was still loud enough to hear. “A big shot in the industry.”

“Says you!” Ms Lee exclaimed, voice high with laughter and disbelief. “No offense, my darling boy, but he’s just starting in the business and he’s not doing too well.”

“He is promising, however! Everyone is promising here, in the land of the free!”

“And what is the land of the free, for you? Our dear Insomnia town?”

“Oh no, dear. Heechul’s basement is more like it!”

Ms. Lee was tall for a woman, and loud. Baekhyun had told Chanyeol in the car that she was too old for wearing red silk, but apparently she had no problem with bright magenta, and had the rare skill to pull it off surprisingly well. Chanyeol decided he liked her when she gave him another glass to drink - but then, that night he liked everyone. It wasn’t his fault if all of them seemed so nice.

“Who is your friend?” Mr Huang asked. He had black hair, slicked back, and his clothes were even more extravagant if one paid close attention. Chanyeol decided he would not stare much, due to respect. He would rather drink instead.

“Ah, he’s Mr Park Chanyeol. Say hi to him, he travelled such a long distance to be here tonight!”

“Oh, wonderful! Where are you from?”

Baekhyun looked at him, his eyebrows raised high. Chanyeol knew what he should say, what the other boy wanted him to say, but he swallowed hard and then laughed. “Prosperity city! I used to fly with the air pirates there.”

“Oh, you slay me!” Mr Huang said. He had a bit of a whiny boy, a certain air of rich boy that was somehow familiar. He smiled so widely, though, looked so happy - Chanyeol had never met someone who smiled that much.

Baekhyun mockingly snorted, taking the empty glass of Chanyeol’s hand. “You’re too drunk,” he scolded, turning around to grab a new one from a passing tray. “Here, have a bit more, will you?”

Minutes passed, and then what it seemed like hours. Chanyeol didn’t know what time it was, but he was with Baekhyun and the rest of those people, and the music was so loud and so good and he was having fun. At certain moment, they made a circle, a rosy-cheeked Baekhyun in the middle, showing them a coin.

“I’m going to show you a magic trick,” he screamed, and ordered Mr. Huang to hold out his hand, palm up. He swiftly placed his left hand on top of his, palm down, and a silvery coin over his skin. “See this coin on the back of my hand. I’ll make it pass through my flesh, magically, to Mr. Huang’s hand.” He had pretty hands, Chanyeol vaguely noted; long, beautiful fingers, and he wished for a second Baekhyun was performing the trick on him. “One, two, three, and here we go!” He smacked the top of the coin with a swift move, covering his left one with his right, and when he removed it, the silvery piece was gone. “Check it out!” he told Mr Huang. The young designer checked his palm when Baekhyun removed his left hand as well, and he let out a loud, shrilling burst of laughter when he realized the coin was, in fact, in his hand.

“You’re a genius, Mr. Byun!” he exclaimed.

Chanyeol looked at Baekhyun just in time to see him pocket a second, silver coin. He still looked beautiful, standing in the middle of the circle with mischief in his eyes, and the boy thought that _fuck it_ , perhaps he wouldn’t be as unlucky at the other side of the mirror. He could take his chance. He _could,_ yeah, so he grabbed Baekhyun by the sleeve and dragged him towards him. “I saw the trick,” he whispered, leaning in, and the other boy grinned up at him.

“Then don’t reveal it.”

“Dance with me? And I’ll keep quiet.”

“Wow, blackmailing me, aren’t you?” Baekhyun feigned offense, his eyes open wide in mock shock.

“I think I lack the power to blackmail my own tyrant. You’re the one with the choice, boss.”

Baekhyun remained silent for one, two seconds. Then he grinned, when Chanyeol’s own smile started to fade. “Okay, don’t play the lost puppy trick at me, let’s go.”

The band was playing loud, upbeat song, and in his peak of bravery Chanyeol had forgotten that he knew how to make music, but he had always been disastrous at dancing. As soon as they got closer to the small stage where the band was, they were surrounded by a mass of people, both solo and couple dancers, moving to the music in a fashion that Chanyeol found himself unable to imitate. He let a drunken Baekhyun lead him around, laughing when they collided with other men and women and couples.

“You’re too gangly!” the boy complained, eyes still bright. “Too awkward!”

“We don’t dance like this in the place I come from!”

“No Foxtrot? And what do you do?”

“We just jump around, and people shake their asses, I guess. Not me, though.” Chanyeol thought about it for a second, recalling Sehun’s stern expression every time he ruined his perfect nights out. “My best friend says I have no ass. But he’s the ass, if you ask me. A total ass. Who gets laid a lot. With.. people.”

“Oh, wow, how endearing.” Baekhyun stiffened under his contact when Chanyeol practically slumped on him. He smelled nice, and was stronger and more sober than he seemed to. He could hold him in place, without them colliding with many people - that was awesome.

“I want to let you know that I’m really thankful, y’know,” Chanyeol slurred. “Because you helped me and you’re cute.”

“Really, young man, how drunk are you?”

“Pretty much. But you’re a horrible magician and no one has told that to your face, so let’s conceal the ugly truth in both cases.”

“Eh, hey, hey, just so you know, I am a master of lies.”

“A true mastermind of subterfuge.” Chanyeol snorted. “The architect of deception.”

“Wow, you’re not only drunk, you’re fried to the hat,” replied Baekhyun. Chanyeol had many reasons to protest, but the other boy didn’t give him the chance and simply pushed himself away of Chanyeol’s embrace and took him out of the dancefloor. “Rest a bit, okay? Talk to some of our friends.”

“I don’t want to talk to our friends, we aren’t even close. I want to talk to you.” There was another waiter passing just in front of them, carrying a tray with canapés and another with glasses of wine. _Fuck the canapés,_ Chanyeol thought, and went straight for the champagne. If Baekhyun was judging him, he didn’t let it show. Not much.

“Didn’t you say you’d help me? We had a deal,” he replied to him. “Entertain my guests, help them to get drunk as hell and make them believe we’ll sell them the most wondrous marvel of the world, and then I’ll dance with you again.”

“Are you blackmailing me now?” Chanyeol whined (he had tried to sound funny, he promised, but the situation was saved because Baekhyun actually laughed).

“Maybe,” he answered. “Remember, I still am a master of deceit.”

“That’s not deceitful, that’s just lame.”

“Very, very well, but be a good boy and indulge me, will you? I have to find Mr. Zhang to talk for a moment, I’ll leave the others to you.”

Mr. Zhang had been the man in the blue suit that Baekhyun had introduced to him along with Ms. Lee and Mr. Huang, he now remembered. In his drunken haze, he remembered that the other boy had mentioned his name before, when they had met. “Ah, he’s the mirror guy!” he exclaimed. “The one you had business with, the business I screwed.”

“Yeah, so you owe me one. So please?”

Baekhyun was asking him so kindly, and Chanyeol thought that, _fuck it._ It had been ages since he had been able to attend a party as big as that, and with open bar, no less. He was always studying, always working part-time, always trying to save all the money that he could. He could enjoy one night, forget about his responsibilities and throw his inhibitions away. Everyone was as trashed as he was, anyway, and he was as well dressed and fancy-looking as the others. Better than that, he was exotic. Different in the good sense of the word.

These people didn’t know yet, but they could be told. Baekhyun had hired him to be a storyteller, didn’t he?

So he kept his head high and emptied his glass when he saw Mr. Huang’s ugly red suit to his right. He was with Ms Lee, and the scenario was perfect. “I won’t fail you, Byun,” he said, and he felt actually proud of himself because wow, such camaraderie. Then he left Baekhyun behind, winking an eye at him as flirtatiously as he could before heading towards Mr. Huang and tapping him in the shoulder. He could do that, he should be able to know how to be a charming, party guy. He had seen the Great Gatsby movie (the book he still had pending), and he had seen it twice. “Hey, old sport,” he called Mr. Huang, and ignored the other man’s widely open eyes as he went to hug him. “Have I told you that I come from another world?”

—

The night was young and Chanyeol was wasted.

“Canned, corked, tanked, primed, scrooched!” as Mr. Huang was saying. “Jazzed, zozzled, plastered, owled, lit!”

“No way, you’ve invented half of those!”

“As you’re inventing half of the things you told me!”

After spending more time with him and Ms. Lee, Chanyeol had realized that Mr. Huang was younger than he seemed. His flashy and horrible fashion choices made him look ageless in a sense, but once looked up close, he couldn’t be much older than twenty. He looked as much the spoiled young heir as he probably was, and at times foreign, at times so familiar that Chanyeol had to blink and blink so his face would come more into focus. It wasn’t easy, considering how much the other boy was laughing and jumping around, the happiest in the whole party, the most carefree.

“It’s true that we have rockets that go to the moon, and high speed planes, and smartphones,” Chanyeol protested, and Mr. Huang let out another burst of shrilling laugh. Chanyeol had yet to see him drink, but considering how unfocused his gaze was, he had already engulfed half the bar. His smile was so, so, wide, full of a contagious joy.

“What is a smartphone? Like a telephone, but cleverer? Does it talk to you?”

“You can talk through it? And send… messages?” Chanyeol tried to explain.

“Intelligent conversations! I want to have intelligent conversations, talk philosophy! Can your magical telephone do that?”

“It’s not magical, but I guess you can search for stuff on the internet… if you have 4G, or wifi?”

“Four-gee, is that a new car brand?” Mr Huang inquired, shaking on his feet, like he was either going to collapse or to start dancing. “Because if it is, I want one of two. Are they from the other side of the mirror?”

“Everyone knows that objects can’t be carried from one to the other side of the looking glass,” Ms. Lee chimed in. “No magical items, that’s the rule.”

“We are not talking about magical stuff, the deal’s about cars! Do automobiles fly, in the world across the mirror?”

“They don’t, and I didn’t bring any cars. The mirror was too small. But, if you want, you can buy the items Baekhyun brought. Mr. Byun, you know the one. He said he would dance with me if you did, so do a favor to a friend.”

Mr. Huang hummed in approval. He kept moving to the rhythm of the song the band was playing, eyes half closed now, lips parted in delight. He looked almost in a trance, so absurdly happy. Euphoric. “Dance with me instead! Let’s make noise!” he practically commanded. “Noise, noise, noise!”

“I don’t make noise, but I play music!”

Chanyeol had lost count of how many glasses of wine he had consumed by then, and his coordination was even worse than usual, but the party was crazy and he still was having fun, so he waved goodbye to Ms. Lee and her bright magenta cocktail dress and followed Mr. Huang to where the band was. There was a spring in the other man’s step, like little shocks of concealed energy and made him wobble but also pulsed him forward, like a puppet on strings. Chanyeol wondered how drunk he was, how longer will it take him to lose consciousness, and if Baekhyun would think that he was at fault for intoxicating him.

 _He was like this before I came,_ he convinced himself as Mr. Huang lifted himself up to the stage, walking towards the musicians with absolute self conviction. “My friend Mr. Park here plays music. Lend him something he can play,” he exclaimed. “I’ll tip you all!” _He is funnier like this anyway. I am being cordial. Pretty cordial and nice._

The crowd roared in annoyance when the music stopped, but Chanyeol didn’t mind in the least. Mr. Huang was asking him to play, and he suddenly had a public. He had lost the debut gig with his band, and he had no idea on how to play a saxophone, but there was a piano there too and he could try his best, even if he didn’t see the keyboard very well. What was the worst that could happen, that he made a fool out of himself? It wouldn’t be the first time that something like that happened and he could always regret it all tomorrow, while he cried over his hangover at Baekhyun’s guest room.

“Follow my lead!” he decided, practically pushing the local musician out of the piano bench. “I’ll teach you all a song of the place I come from!”

He had spoken, but his mind was to blurry to recall any song he had practiced or composed before. _Delight them like you know best_ , a tiny voice whispered at the back of his head, and Chanyeol closed his eyes and realized that he had just the melody, that he had all along. So he pressed the keys with the pads of his fingers and played.

His song was still upbeat, cheerful, a frenzied current of joy, and Chanyeol just let go, into a spiral of black and white and staccato notes. The other musicians were improvising on the spot, but they accompanied his melody like they knew the notes by heart, by instinct, and the whole public was cheering and dancing, stomping the floor with their feet at the same time.

That was his music, the one he had always heard, and for once it was a roar, and not the tiny little secret he hid where no one could reach. He could feel the wave now, ride it, sense each chord like the low rumble of an earthquake - a tremor under his skin, in his bones, in his very core.

“All, rise and have fun!” he screamed.

He lost the sense of time, the consciousness of where he was and what he was doing. At one point, someone pulled him from his seat at the piano bench, and he saw Mr Huang but it didn’t matter. The song went on anyway, with him singing it out loud when he couldn’t keep playing it. The words didn’t matter, their meaning was irrelevant - there were no lyrics needed, just melody. Just _that,_ as it was. _Keep going, keep going, keep going._

“You’re the absolute best!” Mr. Huang was exclaiming, his shirt half unbuttoned, his grin has huge as a fresh, red cut on his face. The floor was a mess, all ladies and gentlemen dancing like they were going to die if they stopped, but before Chanyeol realized they were out of it. “I, Huang Zitao, declare that I want you in my next party, and the one after that. In all my parties and in my fashion show!”

“You honor me!” Chanyeol half replied, half sang. He was still following the music as he let himself be dragged around, first around the room, then up a set of stairs, laughing at the obvious clumsiness of his partner’s movements. He walked like a uncoordinated doll, a puppet that was lacking half of its strings and could barely keep its head high and its limbs in motion. It was incredibly stupid, incredibly funny. “But how famous you are, Mr. Huang Zitao? Why do I feel I have seen you before?” he slurred, frowning. He didn’t understand why, everything was too blurry, but now that he had finally stopped singing and was just distractedly humming along, the melody was a muffled whisper, far away, instead of the deafening roar it had been.

“Come,” Mr. Huang said, pushing a door open and pulling him along. Everything was darker beyond the threshold, so dark that the only thing Chanyeol could actually see was the other man’s face, skin so pale, eyes wide and black, lips red and open in that big, doll-like grin. “I want it. Come. _Let’s have fun._ ”

Chanyeol had seen that face before, he was sure, but the red suit was wrong, the slicked black hair was wrong, his whole facial expression wasn’t as it shouldn’t be. Kyungsoo’s worried face flashed in his mind, Sehun with the uniform they always wore at the videogame store, two clients who had walked in to buy a shooter game, the day Chanyeol had been swallowed by the frozen lake.

 _‘Do you really need all this, Zitao?’_ One of the boys had said then, as his friend had walked to the register with two games, a headset and a mouse. A friend who had worn washed, brand jeans and had his hair dyed platinum blonde, but had the same exact face as Mr. Huang over there. The same voice. The same name.

Two men, different sides of the mirror.

“What’s going on here?” he asked, the song completely dying in his lips and ears, the warmth of alcohol turning into ice in his veins. He looked around now for the first time and realized he wasn’t hearing the sounds of the party because he wasn’t in the basement anymore. There was pavement around him, dark streets and black buildings, lights on the windows - and above them, a huge, white moon. _Oh, fuck._ “Mr. Huang?”

“Why did you stop?” the other man asked. His smile was still too big, his eyes gleamed too much, almost glowing. There was something… strange in the way his body was moving, like he couldn’t walk towards him without trembling, and shaking, and jittering in some sort of weird little steps between a uncoordinated dance and a convulsion. He had been drunk, but he looked more than drunk, something beyond. “Sing for me. Let’s have fun. _Let’s have fun.”_

Chanyeol took a step back, blinking. “We should go back inside. Baekhyun… Mr. Byun told me that—” he muttered, feeling a wave of ice sweep over him despite the summer heat. He didn’t know why, but he was seeing _light_ coming from beneath Mr. Huang’s skin, like the veins in his face and neck and hands were glowing, radioactive. “A-are you okay?”

“Have fun with me, have fun with me, havefunwithme _havefunwithmehavefunwithme,”_ Mr. Huang shrilled back, his voice high-pitched and metallic and wrong. He lurched towards Chanyeol then, movements rigid and clumsy, like an automaton’s, and the boy realized then than the glowing trails on his body were not veins but open cracks on hardened skin, like shattered glass, white light simmering from beneath.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” muttered Chanyeol. The exit door was just behind him, and he turned around to try to open it with clumsy fingers. His hands were shaking, and the door remained closed under them, no matter how hard he pushed, so he held his breath and attempted to do the same thing he always did when he was trapped in one of his nightmares: he ran.

For a creature so clumsy-looking, however, the Mr-Huang-thing was surprisingly nimble. He jumped forward, eyes round and mouth wide open, as Chanyeol was passing by his side, and the boy saw him, coming right for him, hands stretched to grab, black smoke oozing from his parted lips and the luminous cracks of his skin.

He would catch him; Chanyeol wasn’t fast enough.

 _“Come to me!”_ the creature shrilled.

“Fuck off!” Chanyeol screamed back.

The boy didn’t know what the hell happened - it was all so fast, so sudden, and he was drunk and scared - but there was a flash of light, a crashing sound, like a body being smashed against glass, and then the creature was flying back with a shriek until it landed on a lump on the floor. It still moved, nails digging on the floor, gleaming eyes looking at him while black miasma poured from them like tears and smile growing grotesquely wider and wider and wider.

“Stay back!” a voice called out to him, and Chanyeol looked at the door of their venue just in time to see Baekhyun rushing out, followed by the man in the dark blue suit that he had been talking to. He looked positively pale, like he was going to be sick anytime soon, but his gaze was stern and there was light in his hands. Real, warm light, so different from the one glowing out the cracks of the creature’s skin. Mr. Huang saw it and rose to his feet, growling like an animal but still smiling, always smiling. Chanyeol thought he was going to attack them again, but the thing turned around and moved away from them, graceless and stumbling, snarling incoherent words as he went. “Oh my god.”

“Aren’t you going to neutralize it?” the man in the blue suit asked. “He’s probably leaving for his lord.”

“Let his master have another minion,” replied Baekhyun, shaking his head. He was searching the night, and he pressed his lips into a line when he saw Chanyeol, half fallen, half sitting on the ground, balance lost after the peril was gone. “Are you okay? I thought I told you not to go out at night.”

“I— Mr Huang took me out. I didn’t realize— You didn’t tell me people turned into… What the hell was that? Phosphorescent glass zombies?”

“He’s sick,” whispered Baekhyun. “He has Euphoria Syndrome and he Splintered.”

“He what?” Chanyeol asked back. Splintered. He had Splintered. It sounded just right, considering the former Mr. Huang had cracks on his face. “Listen to me, I knew that guy, sort of. He was in my own world too, or there was a version of him in my city, at least, only platinum blonde and with less… shiny stuff on his skin. What is even going on? Is he even the same guy? I—”

But Baekhyun wasn’t listening to him. The light in his hands had faded away, but Chanyeol could see how pale he still was under the moonlight, even if the other boy was looking at Mr. Zhang instead of him. “You heard that song too, right?” he asked, voice strained, and Chanyeol froze in place.

The other man nodded. “I heard the song, I felt it. And I saw the shield, the one the boy used right now. You were right: he’s no ordinary Traveller.”

“I— Excuse me, what shield?” Chanyeol intervened, voice shaking. He had played his song out loud again, even if he had sworn himself not to do it, and bad things had happened again. _They were asking for it. They wanted it. You did nothing wrong_. But then, why only bad things happened when he did? “I only—”

“That song of yours, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun started, voice soft, words tense and expression strangely open, like he was trying to choose a certain emotion to show up on his factions but couldn’t set on just one. “It’s not normal. That was Soul Magic.”

He didn’t say it like it was something good, and Chanyeol felt himself shake while he struggled to get up from where he was on the floor. Baekhyun was watching him, carefully, but he didn’t step in to help him stand straight. “Wait, what is Soul Magic supposed to be? What does that mean?”

It was the other man, Mr. Zhang, who replied. “It means you have to leave immediately or you’ll be in serious trouble.”

“Leave what? The party? This city?”

“This world. You can’t stay. It is most urgent that you cease to exist in this side of the mirror.”

Chanyeol swallowed. “Why? Because of the Marshall?”

“No,” Mr. Zhang replied, looking at Baekhyun out of the corner of his eye before shaking his head. “Because the Exalted will do anything to have you.”

 

* * *

 

 **Fourth Act - Tract**  
 _Absolve, Domine,_  
animas omnium fidelium defunctorum  
ab omni vinculo delictorum.

 

Chanyeol was told to wait at the storage room until the auctions ended. To his merit, Baekhyun gave him an old blanket and a mug of something thick and warm, a drink that smelled like honey but felt like bittersweet syrup on his tongue. It tasted nice, once the boy swallowed a couple of gulps - it made him felt a bit less cold, at least.

“Can you stay by yourself for a while?” Baekhyun asked, his smile faltering for a moment, despite trying his obvious best to look cheerful. “I have to— You know, my guests are still out there.”

“Yeah, yeah, business comes first.” Chanyeol shook one hand in dismissal. “I’ll be fine as long as the other assistants don’t attack me.”

“They won’t. What happened with Mr. Huang was… a special situation, I suppose: a mistake. Heechul usually takes care of these things, he checks every newcomer, so there’s no sick ones. I don’t know how Mr. Huang managed to slip through unnoticed like that, but it was not normal.”

There were no chairs in the storeroom, and Chanyeol didn’t feel strong enough to ask for one, so he just sat on a crate, shoulders slumped. “Figures. Told you I was unlucky as hell - if there was one pseudo-zombie in the room it was obvious he was going to attack me. I’m like a magnet for misfortune.” He paused, biting his lip, observing Baekhyun with his fancy striped suit and his styled hair and his eyepatch. “What in the world happened there? What’s wrong with this city? It looked normal enough when I came, except for the zeppelins and all, but… _this?_ ”

“Insomnia changes by night.” _Yeah, into nightmare fuel._ “That’s when the sick come out.”

“Sick? With that Euphoria thing? So Mr. Huang turned into a cracked monster because he had some kind of… magical illness?”

Baekhyun nodded. “It’s called Euphoria Syndrome, and has to do with the mist - the one us Blessed use - turning toxic. The ones in the first stages of the sickness look healthy by day, but tables turn when the sun sets. They turn wilder, crazy ridiculously cheerful… and in the end they Splinter.”

“So it only affects wizards?”

“The Blessed are more sensitive, but no. Mist is everywhere: it powers our machinery, it’s a visible form of energy we all need to function. You can be infected by breathing in mist that has been poisoned into miasma, or by staying too close to the infected, especially when the sickness openly manifests and they… Splinter.”

Chanyeol looked down at his own hands. He could see no cracks on his skin, no eerie glow nor glass-like texture. Not feeling cheerful or crazy or wild should be a good signal too, although one never knew. “Does this mean I am going to turn into a rave-loving zombie too? Because if I am, you better spare the pain and tell me now. Maybe I could start booking wild parties under the moon with all the sick guys and stuff.”

Baekhyun grinned at him, for the first time since the Mr. Huang incident had happened. The gesture didn’t look as open and simple as it had been hours ago, but Chanyeol guessed it meant improvement. “Don’t be dramatic. You’re a special case, you should be safe. But in any case, so this doesn’t happen again, don’t trust anyone that seems too cheerful, young man; especially if they’re trying to take you out at night.”

“Okay. So Euphoria guys love moonlight. Just like vampires. Great.”

“More like werewolves, but well, think about it however you want. And sorry for the mess, I suppose.” Baekhyun looked cute when he bowed, cute when he bit his lip while he apologized. He still looked pale, blue circles under his eyes, but he kept his head high and his smile plastered on his face as he waved him goodbye. “We have to wait indoors until the sun comes up, you guess the reason, so stay here and try to rest, or sleep, or whatever you want until we can leave. We have stuff to talk about, you and me and Mr. Zhang Yixing, but since we better do so in a safer place, I’ve arranged it all with Heechul so you keep the storage room for yourself until dawn and we proceed with the auction and don’t rain in his illegal parade. Most guests don’t know about the Zitao incident, so we better keep the secret.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ll stay in here with,” Chanyeol raised his still half-full mug. “This.”

“Enjoy, then. I’ll be back for you,” Baekhyun told him, before turning around and leaving, back very straight.

Maybe he should sleep, Chanyeol thought, now that he had been left alone and his melody was barely a background whisper. He could create a makeshift bed with part of the content of the bundles, packages and crates, and have Baekhyun endure the scolding if that Heechul guy complained for messing with his stuff but, even as tired as he was, he didn’t feel like it. He could try, he supposed, give in to the exhaustion and hope for a dreamless two-hour sleep, but he didn’t want to close his eyes and see Mr. Huang’s cracked face at the other side. He knew himself too well to know when there were going to be nightmares.

 _So let’s stay awake, and let’s be positive,_ he thought, gripping the white mug harder, and staying where he was, sitting on the crate, facing the door. _Think about yourself as one of those RPGs you sell: the stranded protagonist, lost in another world. That always sells. And always ends well. We want all this mess to end well, don’t we?_

RPG protagonists always had superpowers, a great cast of supporting friends, a legendary sword and an airship. And he was surrounded by bootleggers and smugglers and only had an old-as-hell pickup to move around, but he could find enough parallelisms to have hope - a little bit, if he believed hard enough.

What would an RPG main character do now? _Rest, level up, keep going forward._ He could go on, he guessed, keep advancing, and hope that Sehun and Kyungsoo would find his adventures amusing (or at least believe a tiny part of them) when he got back. _That’s if they don’t tell you you’re going as crazy as your mum is._

Chanyeol sighed, taking a long gulp of the bittersweet drink Baekhyun had gotten him. Back at home, his mother had incessantly talked about demons, and dark magic, and protecting him. Now he wondered how much of it had been her usual hallucinations and how much were things she had actually known, one way or another.

Had Chanyeol really seen a face in his mirror after his family’s accident? Had he opened some sort of portal by humming and then closed it to escape from the voices at the other side or had it all been a dream, just one more version of his fractured, recurring nightmares?

 _Don’t trust anyone that seems too cheerful,_ Baekhyun had told him, with exactly the same tone of voice that he had used to convince himself that everything that seemed too weird in his life was just… not real. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who heard songs in his mind. Maybe he was special in the good, nice sense of the word.

“Well, it turns out that you’re weird even for this world,” he muttered, emptying his mug and letting out a tired sigh.

He didn’t remember leaving his crate and sitting down on the floor, but he probably did at some point, just before falling asleep. He didn’t feel rested when Baekhyun shook him awake, smile plastered on his lips but eyes still a little wary, but he had been exhausted enough to keep nightmares at bay, and his mind was groggy and slow but at least most of the panic and confusion were gone.

“Are you hangover?” Baekhyun asked, voice gentle, a little amused, and nodded when Chanyeol shook his head no. “The sun’s coming up, so it’s our time to leave, before the guests do, yes?”

“Did your auction go okay?”

“Ms. Lee spent a fortune. She liked you, I think.”

“What can I say, I am a grandma killer.”

“That’s always a good quality to have.”

They left through the storage room, heading up the stairs in absolute silence. Insomnia was empty and surprisingly beautiful at dawn, sunrise painting the firmament red beyond the black buildings. It looked magical, eerie, the contrast between crimson and sable, blood over ink, a breaking day over the darkness of night. Insomnia was an impressive city, he thought as he observed the square lights in the windows of the skyscrapers and they traversed the streets in Baekhyun’s old pickup, and would had been even more stunning if there weren’t banners against Euphoria at every corner, if all the buildings were well preserved and some in the north-most district hadn’t cracks on their outer walls and boarded up windows. Skyscrapers gave way to shorter buildings soon, four and five storied buildings, smaller shops and single family houses, all in black, always in black, but colored by red or blue or yellow curtains on the windows, and the occasional trace of ivy on the walls.

“You live too far,” muttered Baekhyun with a deep sigh. For once, he wasn’t driving and Chanyeol was glad for that. Mr. Zhang was much more careful on the wheel, and he drove like a normal person even across those deserted streets. He was wearing gloves, the boy noted, white and old-fashioned, like a magician’s. All of him looked out-of-date in a sense, from the cut of his dusty blue suit to the kerchief around his neck - and archaic young gentleman, especially behind the times when compared to Baekhyun’s stylish boyish charms. Chanyeol would have like to know how he looked to other when sitting beside them.

“Someone among us needs to have a residence in the northern districts, and since you will not, I am still in charge of the duty.”

“Ah, absolutely. You know I’m always thankful for that, but your place’s still far. I am a busy man.”

“Of course, but we are here.”

Mr. Zhang parked their vehicle in the side street of a residential district, and Chanyeol let out a groan of relief when he was finally allowed to leave the cramped front seat, where he had been squeezed between Baekhyun and the side door. The air wasn’t as heavy with heat and humidity at that time of the day and but he still took his suit jacket off anyway, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up as he followed Baekhyun and Mr. Zhang up the front stairs of a two-storied, black stone little house. He liked that part of Insomnia, he decided, despite it looking much, much less impressive and being in a much worse state of conservation. It seemed like a whole different place, calmer, quieter, closer to home in a way.

“We have not been tracked, am I correct?” asked Yixing, producing a key from his waistcoat pocket. “No miasma?”

“Not a trace.”

“Good.”

The interior of the house was surprisingly spare of furniture… or at least it would have been if one didn’t take the bookshelves into account. They were everywhere, covering the walls of both the hall and the living room from floor to ceiling, full to the brim with books of every size and color, messily piled up, as if they had just been put there without any care for color, shape, continuation or general order. The coffee table was full of them too, some of them closed, some open and written in an alphabet Chanyeol couldn’t quite identify.

“What language is that?” he asked, sitting in one corner of the lumpy sofa as soon as Baekhyun did. Both of them barely fit in there, and their shoulders collided.

“Which one?” Mr. Zhang asked, leaving his folded suit jacket over the pile of books on the coffee table and tilting his head to look at the one on Chanyeol’s lap. “Why, that is classic Prosperan. The language we are currently speaking. What is the problem, are you illiterate?” He walked away from the living room, heading through a doorless threshold into what seemed like an small, old kitchen. “Do you want tea or coffee, by the way? I am afraid I have run out of milk, but I was given these blends recently and they are exceptional, I must say.”

“Are you seriously offering black coffee to me? That’s disgusting,” Baekhyun replied, wrinkling his nose in mock disgust despite the fact that Mr. Zhang couldn’t possibly see him. “So make it tea for me. What about you, young man?”

“I, um, coffee?” Chanyeol muttered, still checking the pages of the book, eyes wide. He couldn’t understand a word, he couldn’t recognize the letters. They looked like glyphs, intricate and elegant on the paper, lines rounded and thin and foreign. The boy risked a glance towards the kitchen, then leaned towards Baekhyun, biting in an apology when the other man flinched in surprise. “We are not currently speaking in this thing,” he muttered. “I haven’t seen this language in my life.”

“Ah, but we are. Insomnia is an independent city inside the Prosperity Empire. We are self-governed but we do speak Prosperan. You are speaking Prosperan.”

“Last time I checked, it was called Korean. And also, I could read all those _Beware of Euphoria_ signs outside like ten minutes ago. Are you trying to tell me that those were written in this language too?”

“Obviously not. Those are written in modern Prosperan, and half of the books in my personal library are in the classic variant of the language.” Mr. Zhang was coming back from the kitchen now, one mismatched cup in each hand. He left one in the one and only empty space of the table, in front of Chanyeol, and took a couple of heavy tomes away before presenting the other to Baekhyun. “Don’t you have classic variations of your language at the other side of the mirror. That is certainly interesting.”

“We don’t have anything that looks like this in any part of my world, that’s for sure.”

“Ah, so our languages evolved to be equal from different sources, despite the common base of meaning and pronunciation. Influence of the mirror, I wonder? You didn’t tell me about this, Baekhyun.”

The boy arched his back in a yawn, his usual, healthy color back in his face, but black circles still under his eyes. “We came here to discuss Chanyeol’s little issue, not to have a magistral lesson about world differences, don’t you think? Indulge me a little bit - I know I promised you a mirror and what I brought instead is a lost Traveller boy, but he happens to be a Soul Mage too, so even if I’m very sorry about this situation I can’t make amends by letting you study him.”

“He is a special creature,” protested Mr. Zhang. There was no space left on the sofa, so he sat on an old, cranky chair.

“Special to you _and_ special to Haze,” Baekhyun replied, very matter-of-factly. “I remind you that we don’t want Haze to have special things, Yixing.”

Chanyeol opened his mouth, then closed it. “It’s true, you are the mirror guy!” he realized. “The one Baekhyun was going to sell his mirror too!”

Mr. Zhang raised his eyebrows until they seemed to sink beneath his dark, messy hair. “Is it so? The one that got broken in Mr. Byun’s little ordeal?”

“Absolutely not my fault! I am a businessman, I don’t go around pointlessly breaking merchandise that would earn me a fortune!”

Chanyeol observed him gesticulate, all lively and full of energy. He frowned. “You have mentioned that Haze person before. Who are they?”

“The Exalted,” Mr. Zhang replied, as if it was explanation enough. “Everybody knows about the Exalted.”

“Not if they come from another world, remember?” said Baekhyun with the shadow of a smile. “Hey, young man, remember when I told you a story and mentioned that Insomnia used to be ruled by wizards before? Since long, long ago until… recently, we could say, we had this royal line of Blessed people, or lineage of princes, and kings and queens touched by the stars. Soul Magicians, like you are. People in Insomnia called the ruling one in each generation the Exalted. And the Exalted is precisely what Haze is.”

“So he’s a… king? Wizard king?”

“Yes but no. He was… relieved of his position some years ago. Remember I told you he fucked up? Well, his way of screwing up basically consisted in using his Soul Magic to make Insomnia a delightful place by exhausting the reserves of mist in town, poisoning them into miasma and making half of the population sick with Euphoria Syndrome. Quite an achievement for someone so young. The marshall took control and tried to fix all this catastrophe, of course, but how do you stop the most blessed Blessed of the country, especially when he’s also a Soul Mage _and_ a Mirror Traveller?”

“Is he?” Chanyeol whispered. “Like I am?”

“Yeah, only more powerful and crazy and manipulative and chaotic evil in general. No offense, but you’re no competition. You’re… nicer than him I suppose, but that wouldn’t exactly save you.”

“Normal wizardry feeds on mist - corporeal energy,” Mr. Zhang added. “But Soul Magic gets its power from human emotion. It can manifest in many ways, and be channeled by many means, depending on the user. In Haze’s case, it is through noise. Noise and mirrors. It is chaos.”

“Mirrors?” Chanyeol repeated. “Is this why there aren’t mirrors anywhere on this side of the looking glass?”

Baekhyun smile turned sour. “Bingo. Haze is a Mirror Traveler, a trained one, and that doesn’t only mean that he can cross from this world to yours if he wants to, but also that he can move from mirror to mirror inside of this one. If there’s an uncovered mirror, he can use it as a door. And not only for himself - also for his powers, for his poison. That’s why the marshall ordered all the mirrors in town destroyed.”

“And why in the world did you have the one I used to come here?”

“Because I stole it. There are some mirrors left, but they are kept covered and protected.” Baekhyun shrugged. “I thought that if I got my own, me or Yixing could use it somehow to get to Haze, or that he would come to us.”

“Wait, isn’t he evil? Why do you want him to come to you?”

“He needs to do so, so I can kill him,” Baekhyun stated. He said it just like that, almost cheerfully, like he was commenting on how blue the sky was or how pretty Insomnia looked in the mornings. There was an edge of danger to his voice, yes, but it was concealed, a sheathed blade, an undertone that Chanyeol had failed to hear until that same second.

“Didn’t you tell me that you wanted a mirror because you intended to sell it to this Yixing guy here and get a lot of money?” Chanyeol stuttered, mouth agape.

Baekhyun blinked at him, smile on his face almost angelic. “Oh, that? I lied.”

“ _I just noticed that!”_

“I needed to keep an eye on you while I decided what to do, that’s all. You came from another world, I couldn’t have you walking around and being delivered to the marshall _or_ to Haze without even knowing if you were dangerous. And besides, shattering mirrors _should_ weaken the bastard, so if you ignore the trouble you got us in, the mirror by itself is not that much a great of a loss.”

“So that story of the mirror I owed you…”

“You still do, for the record. Mirrors are the rarest thing in all Insomnia and Yixing and me wanted to use one to quick Haze’s ass, but now that we know that you can use Soul Magic the plan we agreed on when we met is still on, more than ever. We need a second mirror, and we need to send you through it before Haze finds you and decides to dig his claws in your skin. You’re welcome, young man: you’ll be leaving this world soon.”

“I thought you were just a smuggler?”

“I am a smuggler with a purpose, and you’re such a cute kid.”

That was certainly the only piece of good news in all that offensive net of deception, and Chanyeol decided he should be, at least, thankful for it, but Mr. Zhang - Yixing - cleared his throat softly. “Baekhyun, there is still another problem. In case you have forgotten.”

“What? The shield?” the boy asked, turning then towards Chanyeol with a smile. “He’s right. Your shield. The magic shield before.”

“Excuse me, but what?”

“When Mr. Huang went wild at night the party. When he dragged you out and jumped on you, remember?” Baekhyun explained. “You used a magic shield to repel him.”

“Did I?” He had done nothing, or at least nothing conscious, besides telling the creature to fuck off. If he closed his eyes, however, Chanyeol could still remember the flash of light, the sound of a body smashing against solid glass. “He kind of… stopped in his tracks - or was stopped - while he was attacking me. Was that a shield?”

Baekhyun nodded. “Apparently so.”

“And is that a… how do you call it, Soul Magic thing? Does it activate every time someone attacks me?”

“I wouldn’t know. I am not one, you know? Soul Mages are rare, even more than Mirror Travelers.”

“Oh, great.”

“Yeah, great. Whatever it is, an automatic sort of shield looks like a wonderful asset to have. Or it would be… if there wasn’t for a small, tiny problem.”

That was starting to smell like trouble. Chanyeol groaned. “Enlighten me, then. What’s wrong with it?”

“There is one simple capital rule for Mirror Travelers,” Yixing said. “And it states that they cannot cross from one side of the looking glass to the other if they carry any sort of magic on them.”

“Not magitec items, not enchanted objects,” added Baekhyun, “and, of course, no spells. That includes shields, or at least I think it does.”

“It would seem so. We can always check, if you so desire.”

The enthusiastic nod on Baekhyun’s side was everything Yixing needed to leave the room, muttering to himself, and so Chanyeol found himself alone with him again - the boy in his eyepatch and pressed suit and perfectly buttoned up shirt. The smuggler and the thief and apparently the… What, now? The avenger? Vigilante? He sold illegal goods by night and fought for justice when the parties ended?

“So, um, you’re doing all this - your business deals, helping me - because you want to kill that Haze guy? To stop the Euphoria Syndrome and all of his… general evil.”

“That’s it,” replied Baekhyun. Maybe he never rolled up his sleeves because he carried hidden knives under them, Chanyeol though as he watched him shift on the sofa to look at him. _Like those guys in Assassin movies and games._ “Though parties are fun, I have to admit. Most people attending are usually very funny, as you could see.”

“One of them tried to kill me. Or to attack me, or infect me, or whatever that was.”

“Ah, don’t worry about that. I don’t think Euphoria affects Soul Mages.”

“You keep saying that, but how do you even know I am a Soul Mage? I come from the other side of the mirror, from another world! We don’t have real spells or magic at home, and I am the most normal person ever!”

It sounded like a lie even before Chanyeol finished letting the words out, and, by the smile on his face, he knew that Baekhyun was aware as well. “You said you liked playing music,” the other boy said, slowly, steadily. “Have you influenced people’s emotions with a song of yours before or was that just last night?”

The boy opened his mouth, but no words came out. “I have never—“ he managed to stutter.

“Oh, come on, don’t look so scared, it’s a very useful skill. Or would be, if you knew how to use it. Because you don’t. Right?”

Chanyeol shook his head no. “There’s no magic in my world,” he weakly protested.

“Ah, but that may not be entirely true,” another voice interrupted him. “Our side of the mirror has little magic and many users, in proportion, but yours is exactly the opposite. According to our records, your world is bursting with energy, but only a few can make use of it - and you are, apparently, among them. This system acts like a sort of balance, an unfair one but a balance after all. Your Earth and ours are connected by mirrors, but everything must remain at the side of the glass where it belongs. Travelers are meant to move between the worlds for short visits, not to remain in a city that is not theirs to stay.”

“So you want me out because I break your balance?”

“More or less.”

Yixing was back in the room from the hall, his jacket and white gloves gone, and a small, wooden box in his hands. Chanyeol’s gaze went automatically down from his face to his fingers: his right hand looked pale and smooth and human but his left wasn’t made of flesh and bone at all. The skin was hard, silver metal, strangely smooth and decorated with a pattern of dark lines, ink on steel, forming a tattoo-like wiring, like the circuits of a chip. It started at his fingers, under his glass nails, and disappeared under Yixing’s shirtsleeves, intricate, repulsive and mesmerizing.

“Wow, try not to be so obvious, young man!” Baekhyun called out to him, and Chanyeol realized that Yixing was already in front of him and he had been caught staring like the idiot he was. “Please, don’t mind him, Yixing, I’d say he hasn’t seen many magitec implants before.”

“Understandable,” the other man said, and Chanyeol swallowed a sigh of relief. “But now, let us focus on the task at hand. We will not have much time once we start this. Of course, we don’t want Haze to be aware.”

Yixing had left the box on the table, and he leaned forward to open it. The interior was cushioned in crimson red and a rounded shape, wrapped in black velvet, rested, secured, at the center. As Yixing leaned forward to unwrap it, slow and gentle, Chanyeol realized that he was holding his breath - he had already known what that was from the moment his eyes had looked at the clothed shape of the object, but he let an involuntary gasp of shock out when he saw the reflection of light on glass.

“A mirror,” he muttered. “How?”

“This one was saved from the purge. It is small, however, not big enough to allow much beyond the mere study of its power, and it has to be kept covered, guarded and protected. To take it out of its box for long periods of time can certainly be problematic, so we must hurry. So if you may, try to open a gate, Mr. Park.”

Yixing moved to kneel before him, holding the mirror just in front of his face, and Chanyeol got a privileged look at his own messy black hair and dumbfounded expression. Oh well, he had missed his reflection - in those last days he had almost forgotten how enormous and round his own eyes looked when there was something he didn’t understand.

“You want me to do what?”

“How did you open the gate back at home?” asked Baekhyun, grinning at him like what he was supposed to do was _obvious._ “Just… do the same thing here, will you? A hand mirror is not big enough to let you fit through, but take it as a rehearsal. For the moment we get our hands on a full-body one? You’ll have to do the same.”

“And you will need to do it fast,” added Yixing. “So you should consider starting now.”

Chanyeol huffed. “Wow, no pressure.” Trying to open a portal between worlds in a hand mirror wasn’t exactly what he had had in mind when he had followed Yixing to his residence, but Baekhyun was right in a sense about him rehearsing, and he supposed he wouldn’t be hurting anyone if he just hummed along to the music in his head. The melody was slower this time, rich and steady, like those times in his childhood when he had sang to the mirrors at his music school in broad daylight, and he felt safe enough to raise is voice, if only a bit, like he had done back then, in reality, in dreams. He lost his tempo for a second when he felt the rush of power - shiny and warm, like a current of hot water under his skin - but the surface of the mirror rippled as he felt back on track, gaining confidence as he saw in undulate waves and ripples. It was easy, as natural as it had always felt before his father and sister had passed away and his mother had started to remove every reflective surface off the house. _You’ve dreamed it, even when you thought it was real you were dreaming it. All of it was mother, imprinting her own nightmares into you,_ he had thought, he had believed, but his mother wasn’t there _then_ and the mirror was changing, his frowning, open-mouthed reflection on the glass giving way to a window towards somewhere else.

He didn’t know that street, not specifically, but he recognized the feeling of the place. He let out a muffled scream, hand darting forward to break through the rippling, soft material of the mirror portal. There were no black buildings at the other side, no old-fashioned cars, just a narrow street and two girls in jeans hurrying towards a convenience store. It all looked so familiar, that could have been his street, the shop he usually went to; those girls could have been his neighbors or his classmates or his friends. It all looked so close and so real that he could almost hear the noises of the city, feel the wind on his face.

His fingers grazed the mirror, and for one moment it seemed that the surface was about to give in, like it had done when he had been sucked in by the fountain. Then there was white light and white pain, and Chanyeol’s whole body got pushed back from where he had been leaning forward, his back colliding against the back of the sofa which such force than even Baekhyun screamed in surprise.

“Hey, you okay?”

Chanyeol looked up. There was no street at the other side of the mirror anymore. No girls, no store, just his pale, horrified face. “Why couldn’t I?” he asked. His hand didn’t hurt anymore but he could feel the pulse of his blood under the skin. “It’s the same light as before. Is that the shield you talked about?”

“Seems like it.” Baekhyun’s usual smile was gone, his gaze sharp on him as Yixing placed the mirror in the box once more. “Can you like… magic it off?”

He said like it sounded easy. “Yeah, it seems easy. Like the typical thing a boy my age would do, you know? Put my magic shield off. Like I even knew why it is on in the first place. Does everyone here have a shield here or something?” As expected, both Baekhyun and Yixing shook their heads no. “Then why am I special? I don’t want to be special, I just want a house and a dog and a band and a boyfriend.”

At that, Baekhyun laughed. “Well, you will be able to have all that, I suppose, if you take your shield off and go back to your world through a mirror. So why don’t you try?”

“And how do I that? Do I sing?”

“Well, you can try that. I believe in you, okay? So give it a go.”

Baekhyun was a liar, Chanyeol thought. Baekhyun had motives. But still, his tone was comforting and his hands were warm when he moved to grab them after a moment of hesitation, and that was more than he could have hoped for in that situation, so he decided to listen and try. It was always his song coming for him while he let go, so actively reaching for the melody seemed like walking into a party uninvited, calling to a power that wasn’t yours to seek.

He reached out for the song, however, and the music replied, growing louder in his mind until it seemed to fill the living-room, expanding until silence had been vanished of every inch of air. His song always been clear but the music that came to his call sounded chaotic, chord over chord over chord. It felt like a distorted version of the melody in the party, the one Mr. Huang and the crowd had danced and cheered up, and he frowned while he tried to find a rhythm.

“Can you feel it?” Baekhyun was asking, and Chanyeol could not hear the words but he managed to read them on his lips. And oh, he really wanted to feel, to see. _How would my soundtrack be, for this moment?_ The sound around him was both familiar and foreign, distorted in a way he couldn’t quite recognize but still his to shape.

There was a thread of clarity among the noise, and he focused on that, tried to push the chaotic succession of chords into order. There were different melodies, playing all at once, one around him, upbeat and steady, another one around Baekhyun, fast and suffocating, like the noose around a man’s neck in the gallows. He could hear the faint music in Yixing, and a soft calling, echoing his own melody, coming from the hand mirror in the box.

Silently, he reached for it, letting go of Baekhyun’s hands almost in a trance. Everything in that room had a particular sound, and that one echoed his own, only slower, louder, darker, like a deadly serenade no one else could quite hear. His fingers found the cloth and he heard himself hum as he slowly removed it, and watched himself in the polished surface.

His skin was still pale, his eyes round and wide, but this time his face didn’t fade into a window to somewhere else. _Show me_ , he though, more like a test than like a command. His reflection looked ghostly as it mimicked his moves - black hair turning white, skin so pale it was almost transparent and eyes pure black instead of brows - and the smile on its lips was a bit too wide as its movements followed Chanyeol’s and he covered his face with his right hand. _Pull. Take that shield off like you were pulling a cloak off yourself, like you’re getting naked for a lover._

Chanyeol did. He felt his fingers close around something slick, as the skin of his face had been covered in some sort of viscous film. He tried to pull, but the thing didn’t come out, and a wave of nausea creeped up his throat. He realized vaguely that he had stopped singing, that the mirror was a dead weight on his lap and Baekhyun was all over him, hands on his shoulders and bottom lip caught between his teeth.

 _He’s touching me so much. He doesn’t usually touch._ He was speaking. “Hey, hey, you got it there. For a second I saw the shield going away but it’s back on. What did you do?”

“The mirror,” Chanyeol replied, still about to gag. “I saw it in the mirror. I tried to take it off but…”

“What’s happening?” Baekhyun asked, finally letting go of him and turning to Yixing. “For a second I thought that the protection charm was off for good!”

“I can’t be completely sure.” Yixing kneeled in front of Chanyeol to take the mirror off him, and studied it for a while before putting it away in its box for good. Now that the music was gone it looked so mundane. “But the Exalted’s magic gets enhanced by mirrors, so there is a possibility that Mr. Park is similar to him in that sense. The looking glass reacted to his power, so he might need to use it as a catalyst for this specific purpose.”

“Then why didn’t it work? He was holding it!”

“Well, my theory is that he cannot use this specific mirror to power himself up for the same reason he would not have been able to travel back to his world with it: it is too small, you see, it is only able to host a limited amount of power.”

Baekhyun groaned. “Mirror size, of course. Why is it always about mirror size?”

“It is also said to depend on quantity.”

“Which is absolutely awesome, because we only have one mirror and it’s all little and cute.”

Chanyeol looked at the closed wooden box with dismay. “So what, now?”

“We proceed with our original plan, of course. Don’t you remember that you still owe me a mirror?” It was incredible, in Chanyeol’s point of view, how Baekhyun always seemed high-spirited (and had a solution for everything), no matter if he got stopped by the police or if he needed to snatch a rare magical artifact. “All mirrors in Insomnia were destroyed, the marshall’s men made sure of it. Being nice as they are, they went from home to home, confiscating, breaking and splintering. Every single one of them… except for three.”

“One is being kept at the Magitec Research Center, for study purposes,” added Yixing. “Another was salvaged by members of the Blessed Order. The third one is at the marshall’s residence.”

“There used to be a fourth one, but it’s broken,” Baekhyun explained, a tiny smirk on his lips, and Chanyeol would have slapped himself. He had been told - many times - that mirrors in Insomnia were a big deal, but he hadn’t expected to have broken an estimate 25% percent of his chances to go back home in one piece.

“This may sound stupid but… Why do all those names sound like they belong to high security places?”

“Because they are! But don’t you worry, we’ll manage!” Baekhyun leaned back on the sofa, hands clasped behind his neck. “Ah, this is exciting! And not as hard as it seems, actually. Let’s see… The Blessed Order has kind of gone rogue after the magic ban so I have no idea of where they’re keeping the mirror they stole - we could try to locate one of their members, but they don’t exactly like me so nah, forget it. We know where the marshall’s estate is, of course, but that place is _very_ well guarded, so I would say it’s also out of the question. So that, my friends, leaves us with the Magitec Research Center. I know someone there, in fact, and he’s an impossible brat sometimes but he owes me one. He’ll help us if I ask him nicely.”

“By allowing us to go to the place where they keep a super forbidden artifact?” Chanyeol muttered, and Baekhyun laughed, all bright.

“Sure, why not?”

 _Because it sounds mad._ As hours passed, Chanyeol was more and more convinced that he had hit his head in the park and was trapped inside a delirious videogame fantasy. Or he would had been, if he was as imaginative as to envision a place like Insomnia, or people like Yixing or Baekhyun. And besides, he was tired, physically exhausted in a way he had never been before, and the sore ache in his muscles and bones seemed real. Like Insomnia was.

“So we just go there and that’s all? Are we sure we don’t need a legendary sword or something? All heroes have one.”

Yixing looked confused, but Baekhyun laughed once more. He looked good when he did; it made Chanyeol feel safe. “What? Heroes?”

“Wait, I’m not saying I’m one! What I meant was— It just seems weird, to activate my… powers by humming.”

“And why should a sword help you with music oriented Soul Magic?” Yixing asked, looking seriously concern. Chanyeol parted his lips to reply, then closed them. If he thought about it, he wouldn’t have known what to do with a sword - and besides, carrying one around would have been like asking to be arrested. On a second thought, he would be okay with something like an ocarina, or a magic flute. Or he could— “But wait, perhaps there is certain option that would help you channel your energy.”

Baekhyun practically bounced on his seat. “Are we talking about forbidden items? Out-of-the-law magitec?”

“That would work, but I find it a bit too extreme. What I meant is that I believe that getting him an instrument to play would be a good idea.”

“A regular one? Are you sure?” Baekhyun turned to Chanyeol, hands clasped over his chest. “Don’t you want something magical? I could get you a really nice price.” He pursed his lips when the other boy shook his head no. “Oh, well, can’t blame you, young man, but I had to try. I’ll find you a good deal anyway, it may be arrogant of me to say so, but I am an expert when it comes to making business. So what do you say, are we going shopping?”

\--

It was almost midday when Baekhyun and Chanyeol finally arrived to one of Insomnia’s main shopping districts.

Chanyeol hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours and his whole body was demanding the rest that had been denied to it, but Baekhyun’s obvious enthusiasm was contagious and he found himself observing their surroundings with awe as the other boy led him through a lively street, clothes and accessories and books on the display windows around them. Under the sunlight, Insomnia looked like a completely different place that what it had been at night - it even seemed easy to forget the billboard signs about Euphoria Syndrome and the occasional permanently-closed store, with the way sunlight reflected on the polished windows of the buildings around them

“Hey, wait for me!” Chanyeol called out loud, avoiding a group of young ladies who looked at him and giggled. Baekhyun turned around, cheeky smile on his face.

“You’re all distracted, young man,” he pointed out.

“I’m not, I’m just tired. Half dead, in fact. How in the world do you do it to look so good?”

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow. “Good, you say?”

“Not good as in _fine_. I mean, no— Well, yes, that too, but I didn’t mean it as in physically… good looking or not; it was more of a looking good in the healthy sense.” _Wow, congratulations, Park, your flirting skills are more on point than ever._ “What I wanted to say is that you look like you have slept and eaten instead of… like I do?”

“Hey, we just had breakfast right now!” Baekhyun slowed down anyway, looking around with his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “But what can I say? I guess coming to the city center makes me happy. Don’t you think Insomnia is a beautiful place?”

Chanyeol considered his answer for a moment. “I do like the general aesthetic: all these people walking around in their fancy, old fashion, and the trams and the cars, and the buildings. I would have preferred to come visit in spring, though, but even though it’s not that bad.” Baekhyun was looking up at him, smile softer than usual, so he felt compelled to talk, if only a little more. “Do you know something? I used to hum at mirrors a lot when I was a kid. Until I was… ten or eleven, I think, before things happened and I started believing I was just dreaming about it happening. I’m not entirely sure these many years later, but I think what I saw at the other side of the looking glasses was this city. It made me feel good to see it. Curious, I guess.”

“You never tried to travel to the other side?”

“Not really. And now I’m happy that I did not, honestly? Imagine me as a kid, getting lost in this city once the sun setted. I would have peed my pants!” Chanyeol half patted Baekhyun’s back, half tried to slid a hand over his shoulders, and felt the other boy flinch under his contact. He bit his lip, stepping away. “I— I mean, I like the city. Don’t get me wrong, it _is_ impressive. The place where I come from also has skyscrapers and heavy traffic and many people everywhere, just not like this. But there’s the issue of the Euphoria guys. Of what happens at night. I would all be really cool to come visit for a while if it wasn’t for… that?”

Baekhyun sighed, smile finally falling as he gazed up and in front of him. “Nighttime, huh? This city used to be so lively even after dark: Insomnia, the city that never sleeps. Truly blessed by the stars, it was. There was music everywhere, people singing and partying and having fun; the kind of place you would have come to, to cheer up if you were sad.”

“Sounds fun,” Chanyeol commented. _Also different from this._

“It is the city I want to bring back,” Baekhyun replied, voice low, looking at Chanyeol from the corner of his uncovered eye. “But you want to go home, right? You won’t see it, even if I do.”

“I guess not.” Chanyeol shrugged. This time, it was Baekhyun who looked almost sad, so he gave him his best grin. “And well, this whole thing it’s not my war and there are many things I don’t know about it, but I really think you can win against that Haze guy if you fight.”

Baekhyun stopped in his tracks and looked at him, blinking. “Do you really…?” he muttered. “You don’t know me.”

“Well, I’ve actually been around you for a whole weekend and let me tell you that you are pushy _and_ a bit of a tyrant but you seem resourceful enough. So I’ll cheer for you once I’m back. _If_ I manage to get back. I kind of like you.”

Baekhyun stammered, for the first time since Chanyeol knew him. When he smiled, the gesture did not quite reach his eyes. “Thank you. I suppose.” He remained in silence for a second, but before Chanyeol could say anything else, he let out a gasp. “But hey, here I am, losing our time with my ramblings. There’s no point in discussing all that now, even if I always love a deep conversation with someone who’s willing to listen. We’ll leave that for another day, yes? Insomnia and his fate.”

Chanyeol nodded, slightly flustered, and followed Baekhyun when he started to walk once more. “I was just telling the truth.”

“Well, what can I say, I know I am charming. But today isn’t about me, young man: you heard what Yixing said, so you are already aware that we have come to the city center for a reason.” The boy gestured towards the broad street beyond, laughing once more as if he had never stopped. “The success of our next mission is in your very artistic hands, so now tell me: what musical instrument do you play best?”

 

* * *

 

 **Fifth Act - Dies Irae**  
 _Liber scriptus proferetur,_  
In quo totum continetur,  
Unde mundus judicetur.

 

A guitar was a guitar, in Seoul and in Insomnia.

It felt nice to play it, to close his eyes in Baekhyun’s tiny guest room and just let go, strumming the strings and letting the music flow. He had always concealed it all, when it came to music - he had hidden at Sehun’s home or at rented rehearsal rooms to practice, he had tried to avoid the melody in his head when he composed or improvised, he had kept different parts of his whole situation a secret, from his mother and even for his friends. It was both strange and liberating to sit there in the open trying to replicate out loud what he always heard in his head instead of just locking it away.

_Ah, the Soul Melody. Let it out._

The sun had came up barely a couple of hours ago, painting the dark night sky first in red, and then in blue. His music was always like soft at that time of the day, a slow, warm rhythm that gained tempo as the world came to life around him, like the deep waters of a river flowing down. Music had its own pulse, a sort of heartbeat, and he strummed along to it.

_How do you want the song to be? What do you want the world to feel?_

“Ah, that’s soothing,” a voice commented.

Chanyeol’s fingers froze on the strings, eyes opening to focus on Baekhyun’s figure, at the door. He hadn’t heard him opening it, and he wondered how much time the other boy had been waiting at the threshold, just listening to him in silence. The concept of it seemed strangely intimate - he had played fragments of his song before, but there were always the loudest, frenzied parts he sang along to. The quiet, little bits were the pieces he kept to himself.

“You’re stopping?” Baekhyun asked. He was barefoot, clad in old trousers and a long sleeved white shirt, but he still looked so proper, shirt buttoned up and eyepatch on. He looked like a sleepy rich kid with messy hair.

“I thought you were asleep. Did I wake you up?”

“Don’t you worry, I’m always an early riser. Your song didn’t have much to do with it.” He walked in, leaving the door open and just stood there for a moment before sitting in one corner of Chanyeol’s bed. There was no other furniture, after all, just that and an ancient wood wardrobe that trembled on its legs every time the boy opened it to hang his clothes, so it was not like Baekhyun had many other options, but Chanyeol still found himself gripping his guitar harder at the proximity, if only for a second. The morning light made Baekhyun softer, sleep quietened him down a bit. “I came out to the living room and heard you play. That’s a pretty song; it’s peaceful.”

“I guess.”

“Is that the one that you hear? You mentioned there’s a song inside of you. Is that it or you were playing something else?”

Baekhyun had his head tilted, his lips parted, and Chanyeol hadn’t known before, if he was ready to talk about that with a stranger - but the boy seemed honest and he had never spoken out loud about that with someone who hadn’t wanted him to hide it and wrap him all over in protective charms, so he just breathed in. “Yeah.”

“Sounds pretty,” Baekhyun commented, thoughtful. “So peaceful.”

“It is was right now, but that’s not always the case. It changes a lot, I think it adapts to what I’m feeling, like a soundtrack. Sometimes it is a lullaby and sometimes a symphony. It can get scary.”

“A song?” there was laughter in Baekhyun’s voice. Obvious curiosity, too. “How is a song scary? Does it get louder? All eerie?”

“Kind of? It’s just the general feeling. My mother hated it, for example. She forbid music completely after my father and sister died.”

Baekhyun’s eyes shot open, back straightening with tension. “Did they?” he asked, blinking furiously to compose his expression before he spoke again, air of relaxed peacefulness gone. “Ah, I mean, I am sorry, I didn’t intend to be rude.”

“Nah, you weren’t. It happened a long time ago, so it’s not like it’s a fresh wound or anything. I’ve talked about it with my friends, and a therapist. I won’t be triggered.”

“How did it happen? If I may ask.”

“Car accident. When I was twelve.”

“So ten years ago?”

“Yeah. I still have my mom, but she’s sick. She couldn’t get over it and I didn’t help her much. She wanted me to stop music, but…”

“But you didn’t listen.” Baekhyun shifted on the bed until he had his back on the wall and his bare feet on the sheets. Chanyeol could only see the left side of his face, soft ash brown hair over his forehead and eyepatch on his skin. “You played your song and here you are, stuck with me.”

“Temporarily, though.”

“I guess so. Temporarily”

Chanyeol turned his head to look at him, acoustic guitar still on his lap. “What about you?” he dared to ask. “Do you have family? You live all by yourself here.”

“Ah, I do. Mother, father and and a brother, older than me, he is. Though they won’t exactly come to visit because they live too far away from Insomnia. Which is nice, because that means no Euphoria for them, and kind of a relief because they wouldn’t have liked my lifestyle here, I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“I didn’t ask, but they are not the kind of people who would have liked their son to throw illegal parties, or to work in the smuggling business. They are old, traditional people, the kind with very good intentions and very little understanding on how the human mind works.”

“And don’t you miss them?”

“When I came, I liked Insomnia better than them. I’m such a terrible, unfilial son, you see,” he explained, shrugging and grinning, almost jokingly, like that was the most common thing to say. And perhaps it was, for someone like him; so carefree, so bright. Chanyeol had always been less honest.

“That makes two of us, I guess,” he added. It felt good, in a sense, to state it.

“What? But I thought you were coming back to your mother? It’s not like you’re abandoning her or anything; you have been out for less than a week.”

 _No, but I ran away in the middle of the night. I took her protection charms off, and I sang, and I don’t know if she knew about this or not, but she said she would protect me and now I’m here._ “I don’t exactly listen to her. Like with the music thing.”

“Because she wanted you to quit? Well, you should have told her that there are some things we can’t stop ourselves from doing, even if it would technically be better for us,” Baekhyun stated. “That song is Soul Magic, it’s part of you. And reality is reality, you can’t exactly change that.”

“My mother and reality don’t get along well.”

“None of us do, when it gets ugly.”

Chanyeol closed his eyes, considering the thought for a moment. The silence stretched for a while, broken only by the sounds of the city, coming to life at the other side of the open window of his room. “None of us do,” he finally repeated, taking his chances when Baekhyun turned to look at him and giving him his best lopsided grin. “So you also get all deep sometimes, huh?”

At that, Baekhyun laughed out loud, covering his mouth with long, lean fingers. “I am the master of deep conversation, sir,” he stated. “Or well, maybe I don’t, but I need to charge my own batteries once in a while, you know? Be quiet and talk about the great mysteries of human nature so I can focus on the importance of my parties later on.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Whatever I say, yes.”

“Has someone told you that you’re terrible?”

“I am mostly told that I am a man of many charms with great driving skills.”

“Seriously? Do people lie to you often?” Chanyeol couldn’t have snorted louder. “What you are is an abusive employer and a madman on wheels. I don’t know if I’m more afraid of you making me carry a whole cargo around in exchange for a bed or of you driving that fucking car, I swear.” But still, Baekhyun had taken him in and, even if he had his own agenda, he had helped him. At least, he owed him that much. “But despite everything, you’ll see, I’ll end up missing you when I go back to the other side.”

Baekhyun pursed his lips, letting his gaze drop with a sigh. “Nah, you won’t,” he said. “Not at all. But still we should remember that I did what I had to do. That’s what matters the most. Do you know I talked to my friend? I wanted to tell you.”

“The one in that Magitec place?”

“Research Center, yes. He’ll be on night shift later today, from one hour before curfew until dawn. And that’s our chance: as you know, no one likes nighttime here so they won’t bother us. He’ll be the only one in the center basement.”

Chanyeol felt his breath getting stuck in his throat, his pulse quickening. “Wait, why didn’t you tell me before? Does that mean that…?”

Baekhyun grinned at him, all white teeth and dark eyes. “It means exactly what you’re thinking,” he said. “You should get ready: your Insomnia adventure is ending tonight.”

—

The Magitec Research Center was a big, lean building in the center of town, a tall tower with a black stone arched entrance and walls made of dark glass. Chanyeol could see his own silhouette reflected in them as he and Baekhyun walked up the stairs leading to the main gate. The name of the place was written over them in golden letters, both in the elegant glyphs of classic Prosperan and in the variant of the language he could read.

_So we are here, finally. I’m going home._

The doors automatically opened when Baekhyun walked towards them, and Chanyeol just followed the other boy inside. If the exterior of the building had been pretentious enough to leave him breathless, the main hall inside made him stop right in his tracks for a second. If not for the people in suits rushing from one place to the other and the low hum of human voices in the air, that place would have been more reminiscent of a temple than of the public office it was.

The floor was made of the usual black and white checkered marble that he had already seen in other Insomnia buildings, but the walls were matte stone and the columns that held the high ceiling in place were made of tinted, translucent crystal. They rose, high and proud, their upmost part splitting like tree branches that sustained the glass vault above their heads. That had to be the finest of Insomnia’s architecture - an enchanted forest of concrete, stone and glass.

“One hour until the curfew,” Baekhyun mentioned under his breath, not sparing a moment before rushing towards the desk at the other side of the enormous room. He was wearing a pinstripe grey suit that day, jacket folded under his arm, long sleeved-white shirt under his waistcoat. “Wait around here for a second, will you? I’ll go by myself and announce us.”

Chanyeol had no reason to complain on being left alone, not there. There was a place, at the far right of the hall, where some very bored-looking people were waiting to be called in by the staff, and although the golden seats where they awaited seemed comfortable enough, the boy felt too jittery to just stay still and quiet. He walked towards one of the columns, reaching to touch the polished glass when he realized, up close, that it had been carved to resemble the actual trunk of a tree, translucent vines climbing up, knots a little rough under his fingers.

He didn’t know how Prosperity City or the rest of its empire were, but at times like those he could understand why someone like Baekhyun would like a place Insomnia to live in. Despite its many faults, there was magic in it, a sort of monochromatic harmony in every little thing; magnificence in decay, like the one in abandoned European castles and ruins. The ghost of its golden era could still be seen, the splendor before the newly-established curfew and the Euphoria outbreaks.

“Ah, there you are, young man! I missed you for a moment there!” Chanyeol looked up from the column just in time to see Baekhyun waving at him as he walked in his direction, two golden cards in hand. He was spotting his usual smile, and speaking as loud as if he didn’t mind anyone overhearing. “Are you ready. I got our accreditations. Fancy little things, aren’t they?”

“What are those for?”

“Visit passes. We’re here to see a friend, remember?”

“Ah.” Chanyeol stuttered when Baekhyun blinked an eye at him. “Yeah.”

They headed towards the elevators at the far end of the room. Most of the people still remaining were grouped at the right side, but Baekhyun walked to a set of closed golden doors on the left. They opened with a clink when he pressed the button, and Chanyeol sent one last look at the impressive hall before walking in.

“Why do we get a special elevator?” he asked.

“All the others are heading to the upper floors,” explained Baekhyun, inserting his own golden card into a slot under the button panel. The whole elevator shook and started to move slowly down when he pressed the one marked as B3. “We’re going to the basement. That’s where they keep the dangerous stuff, if you must know. The deepest a mirror is hidden between stone walls, the safer it’ll be to keep it.”

“Do I want to ask how did you manage to get a visitor’s pass to a high security area?”

“It’s not an all-access card, just what we need to get to the desk where my friend is on vigilance duty,” clarified Baekhyun, bright grin on his face but arms crossed over his chest, fingers of his left hand drumming on his own arm. “But if you must know, I am very resourceful and had to blink blink and promise a date to the girl on the reception desk so she would let us go _this_ far. I am to take her out for a walk in the park next Friday.”

Chanyeol looked down at him, eyes wide open. “That’s why you didn’t want me to wait somewhere else?” he asked, incredulously. He felt an ugly wave of something akin to betrayal going up his throat, and had to force himself to stop thinking before his own ideas took shape. Baekhyun was handsome, and witty, and bright, but he was as nice to him as he was to everyone else. He was social, so being spoken a lot wasn’t any kind of special treatment, and he was helping him, yes, but Chanyeol wasn’t as dumb as to think it was out of his good heart. Baekhyun was soft, concealed danger, the kind that would sweet-talk into your ear to make you jump off a cliff.

He could date anyone he pleased, and Chanyeol was leaving anyway. He could do whatever he wanted as long as he helped him escape.

“Well, I’m busy these days, but it’s just a walk. How could I say no to such a little price to pay? She was so excited about it!”

Chanyeol refrained to answer and just remained silent until the elevator doors fell open.

The corridor at the other side was completely made of matte black stone - the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Artificial light came from little round carvings in the material over their heads, too white in color to be electrical. As they advanced, Chanyeol started to feel so small, like a little animal in an underground trap, completely entombed in layers of rock and concrete. The melody around him grew urgent, pulsing in his veins like the beat of a second heart as they moved through the same, endless hallway, always forward.

They skipped one door, then two and three, until Baekhyun finally stopped in front of the fourth one, wood painted black over dark stone, and raised one hand to knock. His smile trembled lightly in his lips as a muffled voice replied from the inside. “Who is that?” a man asked, and Chanyeol blinked in confusion. He would have sworn… “I am still on my break!”

“Hey, it’s me!” Baekhyun called back. “I’ve brought the boy I told you about!” He was opening the door before the person inside could give him permission, or Chanyeol could ask him to wait. At the other side, there was a small, windowless office, with a dark green rug over the black floor and what looked like machinery blueprints hanging in frames from the walls. More than half of the space in the room was taken up by a wooden desk, a little too neat and clean for someone to has being doing any kind of work on it.

And behind it, there was a boy. An elegant young man in a dark green suit, who raised his head in surprise when they both invaded his room. His hair was jet-black and not brown and was combed back instead of falling over his forehead, but his posture, his face and even the way his eyes opened in shock hit Chanyeol in the chest with all the strength of déjà-vu.

He took one step forward, then two, and then he was leaning on the desk, ignoring Baekhyun’s warning exclamation. _“Sehun?”_ he called. It couldn’t be, it just wasn’t possible, but the other boy’s _was_ there, and he looked as shocked as he was to see him. “Is it you? Wait, what are you doing here? Why—”

Chanyeol would have hugged him right then and there. The last time he had seen his best friend had been less than a week ago but it seemed like a lifetime, and the other boy looked almost exactly as he remembered him to be, from the perpetually furrowed brow to the expression of annoyed exasperation that took over his face when shock finally left. “Baekhyun,” he said, and Chanyeol flinched when he realized he was addressing the other boy instead of him. “Why is this person talking to me?”

There was a pause, a tense moment of silence. “What?” Chanyeol muttered. “‘This person’? Don’t you know me? It’s Chanyeol!”

That person frowned with Sehun’s face. Now that he looked at him closely, with the attention he had spared him when he had entered the room, there were little details that were different between him and the friend he knew. Both had the same air of a young company heir, but that Sehun’s expression was harder, more like a man’s and less like the bratty rich kid his best friend was. The creases at his brow were deeper and the way he pressed his lips in a mixture of annoyance and curiosity had a hardness to it that his Sehun had always lacked.

“What’s wrong with him? Am I supposed to know who he is?”

Baekhyun was just beside him now, and Chanyeol would have taken hold of his shoulder or his arm for support if he hadn’t known he disliked being touched. “I don’t think that would be very… normal, considering he comes from the other side of the looking glass,” he said. “Are you okay, young man? You look like you have seen a ghost.”

It wasn’t a ghost, Chanyeol realized, but a reflection. It had happened with Mr. Huang too, and the person he had seen at the videogame store the day he had been swallowed by the fountain.

“I don’t know if I like this person too much,” the other Sehun was stating, irritable and just a little uncertain, and for a moment he sounded so much like the boy he knew that Chanyeol almost laughed. “He’s weird.”

“I am sorry,” replied Chanyeol. “It’s just that my friend looks exactly like you. Except… for the clothes and the hair color? He’s brown haired. And called Oh Sehun, in case you want to know.”

“My name is Oh Sehun too,” the boy said.

“I don’t know why, but I supposed so. But well, just so you know, you have a clone in another world.”

“A brown-haired clone.” Sehun seemed to consider that. “I’m not sure I like the idea.”

“Of having a clone or of said clone’s hair?” Chanyeol asked, but decided to keep his mouth shut when he received a stare of disapproval.

“Honestly? Both. Plus the fact of any version of a person like me being friends with a person like you. That’s just— _No_.”

Definitely, Chanyeol liked his Sehun much better.

“Come on, come on, don’t be like that,” Baekhyun was saying. “You’re being disrespectful and he’s a guest of mine.”

“With all due respect, Baekhyun, I have much to say about the kind of companies you like to keep and none of it is good.”

The other boy sighed. “Okay, okay, but you knew I was bringing this person. You promised to help.”

“As I promise many things I always end up regretting.” He sounded so done with life that Chanyeol felt sorry for him for a second. “I also accepted this job because I told my mother I would, and look at me now, with advanced studies in magitec but confined to this basement, doing paperwork and after-curfew shifts. Only because someone has to stay guarding the forbidden items and of course it has to be the newest department slave. Me.”

“Poor baby, you deserve much better. But hey, this comes in handy for us - you can collaborate this way. Help us finish this. Isn’t that great?”

Sehun’s gaze travelled from Baekhyun to Chanyeol, annoyance softening into uncertainty. “Yeah, I haven’t forgotten why you’re here. You want the mirror. You’re really doing this.”

“Of course I am! What could go wrong?”

Chanyeol’s music was gone from his head and the silence turned thick and heavy. He could hear Baekhyun’s intakes of breath, a little bit too rushed, too hard, and he felt a lump in his own throat.

“I’m not sure I want to do this, Baekhyun,” Sehun whispered, eyes on Chanyeol. “I don’t want to anger the Exalted. If things get ugly—”

“They won’t,” Baekhyun interrupted him, voice soft. “You don’t have to do anything, okay? I will take care of it all. This is my battle to fight: the only thing I need is for you to give me access to the mirror room.”

“The Exalted will know. The marshall will know too, and I’ll either be killed, or locked in a cell, or fired from this job.”

“The marshall will have no complaints if this helps bringing the Exalted down.” Baekhyun pointed towards Chanyeol with a little, sharp nod of his head. “Or do you prefer Haze to have him? Do you imagine what he could do if that happened? Sehun, not trying is not an option here, understand that.”

“I am aware of it!” Sehun got up from his chair, right hand sinking in his hair, disheveling it as he turned back to face the wall. “It’s only that… Stars, Baekhyun, this is crazy. All of it was crazy from the start!”

The knot in Chanyeol’s throat was that big that his question came out raspy, weak. “What’s going on here?”

There was no trace of brightness in Baekhyun’s smile when he replied. “Don’t worry about it, young man. This is not your war, and you’ll be leaving soon. So get prepared, will you?”

\--

They had to wait for a couple of hours after the sun set to leave Sehun's office. Chanyeol spent the time tuning his guitar as Baekhyun and Sehun whispered, as far from him as the little room allowed, and too low for him to hear. He had always been good at playing by ear, and if he had to be honest, he had made sure that his guitar sounded as it should before leaving Baekhyun's apartment, but minutes seemed to go by slower when you were entombed under a metropolis and the familiar sensation of pressing the hard strings against the frets was helping him to steady his breath, to do and not to think.

"Could you stop that?" Sehun asked after a while, brow furrowed like he was the actual one being ignored. Chanyeol's right finger stopped strumming and the silence came down on him like a thick, uncomfortable blanket.

"Come on, don't be like that. Give the boy a break, will you?" Baekhyun intervened. Chanyeol tried to glare at him - at them both actually - with all the intensity he was capable off, but considering how little impressed both men looked, he took the final result as a failure. Baekhyun himself didn't even laugh, despite his voice sounding more lighthearted than not when he turned towards Sehun. "Your wall clock says it's eight thirty. Isn't that late enough for us to head out?"

"It might be. I should be out for my first round now."

"Ah, so perfect timing."

The corridors had been silent when they had first arrived, but the soundlessness of the atmosphere was different now - more blatant, obvious. They shouldn't have been there, and they moved silently when they started to advance, like kids heading out to play when the rest of their family was sleeping. Like fugitives, or the delinquents like Baekhyun very obviously was. And Chanyeol wasn't one for silence, and never in his life had he liked stealth, but that was his last night, his last strange adventure, so he would need to follow and endure.

"How don't you all get lost in this place?" Apparently, Baekhyun had a necessity of speaking as strong as his own, because he kept doing so even when Sehun shot him a very annoyed warning stare. "It all looks the same, every corridor and door. I always think the same every time that I come here but, don't you have all that pretty technology? Why don't you just install color changing lights or something?"

"The bosses prefer to keep their magitec for the labs where it's studied and the parts of the building where regular people like you can see it," Sehun finally replied, in a voice so hushed that Chanyeol almost missed it. "There's only so many of us down here, same people as always."

"I thought the Research Center'd have a higher budget to spare in the wellbeing of its employees. To razzle-dazzle them a little, too, if nothing else."

"With the Euphoria outbreaks? Yeah, I wish."

Chanyeol clutched his guitar a bit harder. "Are we the only ones here?"

Sehun didn't look particularly amused with him opening his mouth. He took his time to answer, remaining quiet after their current corridor ended in a round, low ceilinged room. Four other hallways leaded into a place, but only one of the entrances was blocked, the way obstructed by a heavy golden door.

"Blessed by the stars," said Baekhyun, raising one hand to touch the metal surface when they stopped before it. It was decorated with a pattern of stars, spiraling towards the center from all four corners.

"Ask the stars to protect you. And to protect _me."_

There was a card slot at the left side of the doors, and Sehun took his own golden card from his waistcoat pocket and inserted it. Something at the other side of the wall cracked, a mechanism sliding into place, and then the golden doors were opening, so silently that Chanyeol had to suppress the shudder climbing up his back. _Come, little boy, come._

Their way until that point had been a succession of identical corridors, a labyrinth of white light and black stone, but the walls around them were different now - less regular almost shimmering, like the illumination came not only from the holes in the ceiling but from the stone as well. The air was heavier there, buzzing with something Chanyeol couldn't quite identify, and the boy found himself breathing faster, in shallower, little intakes of oxygen. A look at Baekhyun, who walked beside him, eyes set on the corridor before them, showed him one hand in the pocket of his trousers, the other drawn into a fist. The white light made him look almost colorless, in grayscale, surprisingly harder than his usual self.

They reached another set of heavy metal doors, light grey this time. Sehun simply skipped them. There were others beyond, gleaming in different shades of silver, copper and steel. The colors of the gates kept getting darker as they advanced, Chanyeol realized, and the decorations of the metal gates less intricate. The first doors they had left behind had been engraved with vines and stars, flowers and birds, but the carvings became sparse, and the figures turned into glyphs.

The double doors Sehun led them too was as black as the walls around them, the polished surface full of writing Chanyeol couldn't read from top to bottom. It was ink over sable, almost the same tone but strangely distinguishable.

"What does it say?" he asked.

Sehun didn't reply, and he just inserted his card in the appropriate slot.

There was no cracking sound this time. The glyphs shimmered and after that the door was opening outwards, slowly revealing yet another windowless stone room.

The lights were off but they turned on, one after another, when Baekhyun walked in after an endless second of hesitation. Chanyeol didn't know what was making him feel more nauseous, if the eerie glow of the walls or the way that the illumination covered everything in white. His own hands looked pale as a corpse's around the strap of his guitar case, and Baekhyun himself looked like he had been coated in a layer of plaster, more a sculpture than a boy. There was only a thing that escaped the black-white monochrome in that place, and it was the rich red velvet cloth that covered the only object inside. It was the color of roses in spring, the shade of desire and blood, the music in his head when the usual hum became a full-fledged orchestral scream.

_You're almost there. You're such a good boy, Park Chanyeol._

"Well, I'll be leaving now." Sehun's voice came dim, too weak, and Chanyeol realized he was now standing inside the room and the other boy was outside, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I'll wait for you. Baekhyun. Just out in the corridor. Take this-- My card."

Baekhyun walked back to the entrance, nodding at Sehun before he moved to close the doors. Chanyeol felt the pang of instinct, churning in his guts when the heavy gates glided into place. It was only the two of them now, locked inside that room with the thing under the velvet cloth. A mirror, taller than he was by the looks of it, completely covered but still letting out a hum, like the buzz of an insect, so low that he would have missed it hadn't the room been in complete and utter silence.

Suddenly, all of that didn't seem like such a good idea.

"Can you hear that?" he whispered. Baekhyun turned around to look at him.

"What?"

"There's a noise. It's so... irksome."

"Coming from the mirror?"

Baekhyun was frowning, still too serious, and Chanyeol nodded. "I think so."

"We have to hurry up. Before Haze knows."

Chanyeol watched Baekhyun as he strode across the room, hands still in his pockets, head up to look at the mirror. He looked so small when he stopped in front of him, an ash brown and grey silhouette outlined in vermillion.

"If we made it and I get back but that Haze finds you," started Chanyeol, but couldn't help but stop and breathe in. "What will happen to you, then?"

Slowly, Baekhyun turned around. His face was unguarded for once, too pale, and his single visible eye too wide. He took his hands out of his pocket, massaged his right wrist with the fingers of his left hand. "That doesn't matter. He won't be here in time, I'll make sure of it."

"I don't know, I'm--"

"Chanyeol," Baekhyun called him, and his name sounded so strange, urgent, in his tongue. "You're not here to overthink. I brought you here so you can play your song, so I-- please. Do it. Help me, will you?"

"Look, we don't even know each other that well but you helped me and I--"

"Play. Your song. We can't stay here, this place is not safe. You may think you're doing me a favor worrying about me or whatever it is you're doing but I don't need that, and neither do you."

He looked so pale, and Chanyeol didn't exactly want to say goodbye to him like that, in a godforsaken basement, surrounded by that heavy atmosphere, but Baekhyun himself had said that the thing they were about to do was the only chance for him to go home, and he couldn't throw that all away.

"Do we need to uncover the mirror?" he asked, voice shaking.

"I'll do it for you. Just don't linger in front of it and play. First to take that shield thing out, then to open it. I'll cover it back after you've crossed, so don't worry about anything else and concentrate. Okay?"

"Okay."

The guitar case was heavy in his hands while he kneeled to clasp it open. There was silence around him, still too deep except for the buzz coming from the other side of the curtain. His song was gone, completely, and it never was, not like that. He could reach for it, he guessed, dive into his own head like he had done at Yixing's house, but the mere thought of it made him feel like an intruder.

"Are you ready?" Baekhyun asked, hands taking hold of the heavy velvet of the cloth, body at one side of the mirror, in a place where he would not be able to see his own reflection once the curtain fell. Chanyeol wished he could avoid that, he wished it so bad.

"Go."

Baekhyun's fingers grabbed, pulled, and Chanyeol remembered himself in his nightmares, in front of his bedroom closet, heeding the call of his own monsters. He hadn't seen himself reflected in a full-body mirror in what seemed like ages - his mother had broken every single one at home, and he never lingered much too close to big ones, even in his world - and the boy who looked at him from the other side of the glass looked young and scared, with curly dark hair and black clothes and a face so livid it was almost grey. The mirror was a tall, ornamented thing, the glass framed in gold and polished clean. He could almost see it pulsing, like the whole of it was reaching for him. _Come on, play, and give Baekhyunnie what he so desperately wants._

The music was still gone, but he closed his eyes and searched for it. He needed to, so he dug into his head and called. The mirror in front of him vibrated, resonating along to a rhythm that was more discord than harmony, and he strummed the strings of his guitar, suddenly insecure, his music lost.

"Is something wrong?" Baekhyun asked softly, and Chanyeol could hear it in him too, noise and music entangled, and array of off-tune violins repeating the same fast sequence of notes. It seemed to go along with the beat of his heart, and Chanyeol focused on that - the regular pulse of a heartbeat, first Baekhyun's and then his own.

He gasped. There had been noise and a thread of clarity, back at Yixing's house, but things were different then and he only had a throb, and a buzz and silence. However, if he focused he could hear it: the shimmering cobweb of a faint melody, rhythmic percussion and the strings of a guitar. Like the one he was holding in his hands.

 _Got it!_ he thought, and his song was suddenly there like it had never left, fluttering around him like the wings of a butterfly, so he forced himself to stare at his own face in the mirror and started to play. Finding the melody was one thing, but making it follow a conscious command was something else completely. His song had always been free, almost a sentient conscience that followed him wherever he went, and Chanyeol was used to follow and submit, not to order. And however, he still needed to be surrounded by music for the melody to reveal the layer of magic that protected him. _Show me,_ he thought, notes rising in a peak of sound, like a battering ram against a closed door. _Come on, show me now._

His song listened and yielded, the beats of the drums slowing down in his ears. He realized, when he focused his eyes on the mirror before him, that he was short of breath. He felt more like a man who had run for miles than one just strumming an instrument, but he kept playing, because that was the only thing he could still do. Forcing his melody to do what he wanted was like trying to disrupt the curse of a river, but there he was, fighting the current, pushing until he could alter it - and when his arms were sore and his lungs were burning, he saw it on the looking glass: a shimmering layer over his skin.

His fingers left the strings, even though the melody kept resounding, and he took both hands to his chest. He could felt the something slick and wet under his fingers and swallowed a wave of nausea when he took hold of it and _pulled._ It felt like removing a layer of dead flesh from a necrotized wound, and his body protested, trembling and shaking, forcing him to lean forward and gag. His whole being was fighting against having that layer of magic there, covering him, but it didn’t want to let go. It was disgusting, so disgusting, and so he closed his eyes and pulled harder, his guitar dangerously swaying on the strap around his shoulders.

The thing wouldn’t come out. He clenched his teeth and gripped harder. He fought every trace of resistance, until he thought he would collapse and silence started to take over again. And then, in the last second before his song faded, he could feel the viscous layer about him giving in.

So he tried again, and pulled. And this time, the thing came with him.

When Chanyeol looked down at his hand, they were empty. But everything around him feel lighter. Different.

“Chanyeol?” Baekhyun called him. His voice sounded weird, slightly strained, as he left his place next to the mirror and rushed towards him. The boy could see his feet. “Chanyeol, are you okay? Is it over?”

 _You never call me like that._ “There was this… thing around me. It was disgusting, made me so sick.” _Even if I told you to, you never do._

“So you managed to do it?” Baekhyun flinched when Chanyeol’s hands fell on his shoulders for support, but he didn’t move away. He looked so eager, his face a white mask of determination. “We have no time, is it done?”

“I think so. I think it is.” The surface of the mirror was vibrating harder, mist surrounding their reflection - his own scared face, Baekhyun’s back. The other boy had one hand hidden behind his body, silver gleaming in his wrist. “Do I need to open the mirror now?” He could hear wind in his ears, the chords of a song that came to him naturally: the same ones he had hummed along to when the fountain had swallowed him back at home. “I think I can do it.”

“Can you?” Baekhyun asked. He should have sounded happy. They had made it after all. He should have been relieved, at least, but he wasn’t smiling. “That’s good news, I’m glad.”

Part of that statement sounded like truth, but Chanyeol had learned to sense when Baekhyun lied. He was moving, as if to wrap his arms around him and comfort him, give him the support he obviously needed to keep playing. But even if Chanyeol felt weak, Baekhyun never touched.

He saw the glint of silver once more and pushed Baekhyun back without thinking.

The blade the other boy had taken from his sleeve grazed his neck and drew blood.

“What?” whispered Chanyeol, almost voiceless. Instinct had spared him a deep cut, but he still didn’t understand. Baekhyun had helped him when he arrived to Insomnia, taken him in, offered him a way to go back. Baekhyun looked out for his own interests, but he had always been nice. He had smiled at him, joked around and invited him to dinner. But there he was, then, his gaze so dark and a knife in his hand. Moving towards him again, grim and silent. “Wait, what are you doing?”

Baekhyun’s hand rose, the knife he carried gleaming, and Chanyeol covered himself with the only thing he had. He grimaced when he heard the sound of steel against wood, and stammered back, eyes wide open, bottom lip trembling.

“So you can be cut now,” muttered Baekhyun. “How perfect.”

Perhaps he was possessed by the mirror. Perhaps the mist he was seeing in the surface of the looking glass was toxic and had made him sick. “What’s going on here!? Baekhyun!?”

“I told you before, didn’t I? Never trust anyone. Especially not me.”

“Wait, are you—”

He took one step back, and then another, but Baekhyun was still getting close, disdainful. “You wouldn’t understand, but this is for the greater good. You can’t go home, you were never supposed to. I called you across the mirror so you came to Insomnia to die. I didn’t think you’d listen, but…”

“Called me?” Chanyeol felt the metal surface of the door against his back. He tried to lean against it, push it open with all the weight of his body, but it wouldn’t bulge. It was closed, and it unlocked with a card - the one Sehun had given to Baekhyun. “Help! He called out! Sehun, if you’re there, help me!”

“Like he would, even if he heard you. He ran away so he hadn’t to be the one who did this.”

“But— But you—”

Baekhyun wasn’t even bothering in running. He was walking towards the door at a constant pace, knife still in his right hand, wind blowing his soft hair. He looked like an angel of death. Such a traitor, such a liar. “You weren’t even suppose to awaken, this was supposed to be ugly and quick,” he stated. “Boy crosses the mirror and falls unconscious because of the hardness of his trip. Boy gets stabbed in his sleep. One problem less for us. But of course that shield had to appear as soon as you arrived in Insomnia, and I had to improvise.”

Chanyeol drew in a long breath. He only remembered remnants, little bits of what had happened when the fountain had swallowed him. He recalled a wide smile in the darkness, a blue sky, a flash of bright colors. Then the impact, and pain blinding pain. And after, the coldness of steel on his neck.

A knife like the one Baekhyun carried, hidden in his sleeve. He looked at him, fear and anger boiling in his chest.

“You broke the mirror, didn’t you? You were the one who did it after I arrived, not me.”

Baekhyun game him the shadow of a grin. “Clever boy. I needed to give you a reason to stay, and to trust me enough so you would listen when I told you to remove that shield.”

“How convenient that you sent me to speak with the only sick person in the whole damn party that you organized.”

“Convenient, indeed.”

He was so close now, face serious again and knife in his hand. He was quick when he raised it to attack, but this time Chanyeol was prepared. He could feel the sting of pain at the side of his neck, the warmth of blood sliding down his skin, and one superficial wound was more than enough. So he grabbed his guitar by its neck and, tearing the strap out, went in for the attack. He managed to hit Baekhyun on the side, first one time and then a second against his shoulder, grimacing when he heard the thin wood splinter.

“You bastard!” screamed Baekhyun.

“Look at who the fuck is speaking!” replied Chanyeol, and then he released the guitar and went for Baekhyun’s wrist.

That boy was surprisingly strong for someone so soft-looking, but Chanyeol was still bigger, and absolutely desperate. Baekhyun screamed when he twisted his wrist, and he grabbed his weapon harder, kicking him and trying to reach for his eyes with his free hand. Chanyeol was the one he managed to punch him first, however, as strong as he could, but suddenly Baekhyun was hitting back and he found himself losing his balance.

The floor was so, so cold, and the wind keep blowing, stronger. The impact left Chanyeol out of breath, fingers blindly struggling to reach Baekhyun’s wrist again, to punch or scratch or grip before the other boy could attack again and end it all. Baekhyun was on top of him, his body warm and his one visible eye big and dark, full of something very akin to hatred. _Are you really going to let him stab you? What a sad excuse of a Soul Mage you are._

Chanyeol needed time. He needed to think. He needed that scornful voice out of his head.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked. The wind muted his voice almost completely, but Baekhyun’s gaze still seemed to pierce through him. He was holding the knife, raising it with slightly trembling fingers.

“You expect me to feel pity for someone like you? Don’t make me laugh!”

“What have I even _done?”_ Chanyeol pushed Baekhyun back with all the strength he had and made him finally lose his balance. He watched him fall back with a scream, between swirling shreds of black mist. “What the hell?” he whispered. The room was full of them, clouds of miasma that floated lowly, ignored by the blow of the wind. He didn’t know where they had come from, but the mirror was just in front of him, at the other side of the room, and its glass was undulating, shaking - an open door.

“No, wait!” Baekhyun called to him, but Chanyeol had already left him behind and was running. That was the only exit, his only route of escape, and he was so close that he could already see his ghostly reflection in the mirror - white hair, white skin, white clothes. _Don’t you want out?_ _Get out, then. Come. “Chanyeol!”_

He reached out, fingers grazing the glass. The surface wobbled and shook under them, breaking to let him through. His hand sank in, skin and bone disappearing up to his wrist, so slowly. He was so cold. He could hear Baekhyun screaming at him, his steps resonating in the windowless room, and his reflection staring at him, hair untouched by the wind that was coming from the looking glass.

Then there was a thrum, a beat, a moment in time when it all fell immobile and silent - and then the colorless Chanyeol at the other side of the mirror smiled.

_What—?_

The boy tried to pull back, gasping when he felt iron-strong fingers closing around his wrist, cold and hard. When he looked down, the scream in his throat withered into a low, terrified whine. His hand was beyond the looking glass, and his own reflection was the one grabbing it, still smiling that wide, grotesque smile of his. It was identical to Mr. Huang’s when he had attacked him - the exact same thing as the shadow he always saw in his nightmares.

“Good evening, Chanyeol,” he said, with his same mouth, his voice. “How have you been?”

“Listen to me, don’t let him get you!” Baekhyun was screaming, saying something else, but the boy blocked his voice and pulled, as hard as he could. He wanted his hand out from the mirror, away from the thing that bore his same face. Suddenly, there was no resistance, and his limb came free, slick and wet.

For a moment, he thought he was safe. He forgot about Baekhyun and his knife and stepped back, flinching when he felt himself collide with the other boy’s body. Baekhyun could have stabbed him right then and there and he would have been too shocked to defend himself, but he wasn’t moving. His eyes, when Chanyeol stole a glance, where focused on the mirror, and on the figure in white just at the edge of the glass.

His reflexion smirked at him and reached for the undulating surface between them - and the mirror reacted to him and let him through, first his hand, then his arm and his whole body after. He wasn’t slick and dirty as Chanyeol, he didn’t look tired or even bothered in the least. He had his same height, his same face, his same eyes and nose and mouth, but he looked like a different being - head to toe in pristine white, cold and beautiful.

It was him, but he couldn’t be. That was impossible.

“Hello to you too, Baekhyunnie. Has been life treating you as you deserve?”

Baekhyun trembled against Chanyeol’s back. “Haze,” he whispered, and Chanyeol froze, gasping out loud as he stared to his other self. He wanted to ask, but Baekhyun pushed him away, going for the man in white, grip on his knife so strong that his knuckles lost their color. “You fucking—”

There was black miasma curling up Haze’s legs. It smelled like smoke, like something within him was burning. “Oh, don’t be like that. What do you think you can possibly do against me? I thought you would have learned your lesson by now.” He snapped his fingers and, barely one second after, Baekhyun was letting go of his knife and bending down and forward, balance lost, hands over his ears. He let out a pained sound, between a scream and a whine. “I’ve let you play for a week because I was enjoying seeing you so invested in this little game, but did you really think you had chances of winning? By stabbing my copy in the other world?”

Baekhyun looked up, teeth clenched. “I was about to do it, you son of a bitch,” he spat, but the man in white shook his head, still smiling so wide, as condescendingly as an adult speaking to a small, dumb child. He kneeled before him, his long coat so bright on the dark floor, and huffed when Baekhyun tried to move back.

“You really believe so? It was very interesting, your little plan: kill my weaker half and I’ll end up dying with me, but you forgot a small, insignificant detail - we are two reflections of a same soul, so the magic that protects me keeps him safe as well. That’s why the shield I use for myself activated when he crossed the mirror. It was an interesting turn of events, don’t you think, Baekhyunnie? You’ve been in great pain so I thought, why don’t I reduce my own influence over my magic shield long enough for my reflection to believe he is in control? He needed a mirror to cross, so you both would be coming to me directly. My reflection is such a good boy, he always listens when I call, even if he doesn’t know it is my voice he’s hearing.”

Baekhyun turned to look at Chanyeol. “You—” he started, but his voice broke in a whimper.

“It’s me you’re talking to,” the man in white said. “Baekhyunnie.”

“Shut up!” Baekhyun exclaimed, his voice strained. “I swear I’ll kill you! Make it stop!”

“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol called. He didn’t know what to do. The doors of the room were closed, and Baekhyun had tried to kill him and couldn’t be trusted, but that version of himself, with the silvery hair and the colorless clothes, made him want to run or close his eyes, or just fall to his knees and beg for him to go. The fear he felt was something primeval, the kind to make his instincts scream and his nerves on edge. Between the two of them, he would have still chosen Baekhyun, a thousand times, and not the creature who was kneeling before him, laughing at him.

He didn’t know what he could do, but he had to do something. Then a single thought came to him - that the mirror was still open, and heavy wind was blowing from the other side.

“Haze,” hissed Baekhyun.

“Do you want me to tell you a secret? Your little foolish quest made me think a bit about some things. I love my protection spell as it is, but what would happen if I decided to enhance it, I wondered? Considering I’ll need to take care of a second, weaker me once I’m done with you. So look at what I came up with.”

Chanyeol had started to move slowly, little step after little step, when he felt _something_ over his skin, like had covered him in wet plastic film, not allowing him to move, or to speak or to breath. Dampness gave way to heat, and for a second everything was white and burning - but when he thought he would fall on his knees it all faded, leaving only a dull discomfort behind.

The next thing he knew was that Baekhyun was screaming.

He turned around, eyes wide open, lips already parting to shout at him to stop, but Haze had only slipped one hand under the other boy’s chin to force him to look up at his face. Chanyeol didn’t know what was going on; he had no idea of how to stop it. He wanted to punch Haze, push him away, but deep down he knew he wouldn’t be able to get close. _The mirror, I have to focus on the mirror._

“So, what do you think about this new shield of mine? The previous one blocked all attempts to hurt me, but this one goes way further than that. Some animals can’t learn by simple experience, they have to be taught by the use of pain. So, if you touch me with the intention of harming me, you’ll burn.”

“You’re the one who’s…” Baekhyun whispered, fingers digging around Haze’s wrist, sinking in skin, “touching me…”

“Oh well, the spell might need a bit of refinement, but for now I’m satisfied enough. No hard feelings, Baekhyunnie, I’m just striving to make Insomnia into a better place and there’s no place in it for traitors like you.”

Baekhyun didn’t reply. He didn’t scream further either, just took deep, shallow breaths as his eyes followed Chanyeol as he advanced. _Don’t look,_ the boy wanted to say. _Don’t look or he’ll know._ His song had come back to him, over the wind and the voices, and he clung to that as he moved. He just needed some seconds more.

“And what are you doing, my reflection?” Haze’s voice caught him by surprise. It was like hearing himself speak with a tone that couldn’t be his. Just one more of his nightmares, that felt too real to be just in his head. Baekhyun was fighting him, clawing and writhing and trying to punch, but he didn’t bulge. “You’ll be all mine later, just be a little patient.”

“No!” Baekhyun protested, a burst of white light coming from his fingers, bright and hot. Haze didn’t even bulge.

“My, my, Baekhyunnie, don’t do things that could kill you. Especially if they are as pointless as this.”

“Let him go!” Chanyeol shouted back. He had just arrived to the mirror, and he could see that the polished glass was still malleable, like water - a gate open to somewhere else. “Let him go or I’ll—!”

“You’ll what?” Despite the obvious scorn in his words, Haze released Baekhyun and got up, with the meditated slowness of the one who knows that doesn’t need to rush to get what he wants. “Don’t be foolish, boy; you can’t travel through mirrors if you have a magic spell in any form on you, and you’re drenched in my power. You’re trapped, you can’t run - and even if you could, you’re the faster one.”

“I can’t run,” Chanyeol repeated. He knew that - he wasn’t sleeping so he couldn’t wake up. But Baekhyun was gasping on the floor, trembling hands around his neck, and his song was blasting in his ears with the electric intensity of rock and roll. “But there are other things I can do.”

Music boiled in his veins like a separate entity, wanted to act, so Chanyeol parted his lips and let it out, a single, sharp note that reverberated around the room until it was no longer the sound that had came from his mouth. The mirror reacted to it, releasing a flash of light that blinded him, and, when his eyesight came back, the glass was hard and polished again and Haze was coming for him.

“Don’t you dare!”

Chanyeol could see the cracks forming on the surface of the looking glass. He had no time, so he pushed it forward, making it fall. The splintering sound was loud and horrible in the sudden silence.

The mirror was broken, and when Chanyeol finally looked up, he could see cracks, too, in Haze’s white face.

There was light, leaving the body of his other self and covering his skin, _entering him._ And Chanyeol could almost fear the exhaustion fading, the fear giving way to determination.

Haze was losing his balance. He was trying to reach him still, but he stammered and fell to the ground. He had cracks in his hands too, but they were quickly closing, skin mending itself. He was weaker, but wouldn’t be for long.

“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol rushed to the boy’s side. He was curled in a ball, hands around his own red, blistered neck, and looked up at him like he couldn’t believe he was right in front of him. “The card! Where’s your golden card?”

“Jacket pocket,” he whispered, voice all hoarse.

“Okay. _Okay._ Come on.”

The boy still looked small and incredulous as Chanyeol found the card and pulled Baekhyun up from his shirt sleeve. He didn’t ask if he could walk - he would need to, and he did. There was a card slot on the wall, next to the door, and Chanyeol inserted it almost frenetically, rushing through the doors as soon as they fell open.

He only risked a glance inside, when he was pushing them close, and saw Haze, still on the floor, cracks on his skin closing and little smirk on his face. He shuddered.

“He’ll be coming out,” said Baekhyun.

“Oh, really? I hadn’t realized that he would.”

“Let’s go. Just— We have to get out. Follow me.”

“I will. Considering I apparently have a new shield on, so it’s not like you can try to kill me again of something.”

 _“_ We’ll talk about that later. _Come on!”_

For someone who looked that exhausted (and who had his neck all red and raw) Baekhyun ran surprisingly fast. And he would have loved to have any other option, but Chanyeol shut up and just followed, concentrating on the loud sound of his own breath and on the path before them.

“Sehun!” Baekhyun was calling, all care for stealth lost. “Sehun!”

The other boy was at the golden gates just before the vaults. He looked pale and scared, disdainful expression completely erased off his face.

“Baekhyun!” he replied, but then he saw Chanyeol behind him and took a step back. “Why is he still with you? What is wrong? The alarms went off!”

“What does that mean?”

“That this is a situation of high alert. Emergency troops will be coming over!”

 _“Shit!_ We need to get out! _”_

“In the middle of the night?” Sehun looked scared, and Chanyeol couldn’t exactly blame him, but Baekhyun was back to his old self, with his head high and determination in his gaze, and already moving down the corridor in front of him.

“We have three options, my friend. Number one is Haze back at the mirror room, and I can assure he’s angry. Number two is the marshall’s troops. The third one is risking it out there at night. And I don’t know about you, but I’m sure of which one I choose.”

Sehun looked at Baekhyun rushing away and then at Chanyeol, who stood at the entrance of the corridor. He looked almost physically sick, so much that Chanyeol almost felt sorry for him. _Almost._

“He tried to kill me and I’m going,” he stated. “Baekhyun is a better option than that guy.”

Hesitantly, Sehun nodded. Then, he turned to close the golden doors leading to the vaults.

“I’m fired, I’m more than fired,” he whispered. “But I’ve got a place we can go. Let’s head out! There’s a freight elevator ahead!”

 

 

[ Continue to Chapter 2 ]


	2. Murder Melody (2/3)

**Sixth Act - Sequence**  
 _Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?_  
Quem patronum rogaturus,  
Cum vix justus sit securus?

 

They rushed through the night in silence, three moving spots in a motionless world.

Chanyeol had almost expected hordes of the sick coming for them, jumping from the shadows like a macabre army, coming at them with their _let’s have fun_ grunts, but they saw no-one, healthy or not. There had been an explosion of sound, shouting voices and car engines in the distance when they had ran away from the Magitec Research Center, but they had managed to run away in time.

“They’ll get distracted with Haze,” Baekhyun had muttered, without looking at him, or at anyone. “He’ll have to go out through the main door, and I’m sure he’ll put quite a show. We should be safe from the marshall’s troops.”

Sehun had been the one to guide them through the streets, until they had reached an old apartment building. The exterior of it had seemed fine, but the inside looked as decrepit as Chanyeol’s home, back at the other room. The elevator was missing a light, and trembled so much that the boy thought it would fall on them, but it finally delivered them safely to the topmost floor, and when they climbed a last set of stairs, they found themselves in a run-down, tiny room, just below the roof.

There were more machinery blueprints on the walls, like the ones at Sehun’s office but pinned to the wallpaper instead of framed, a small gas kitchen in one corner and a diminutive desk and a mattress close to the bathroom door.

“So this is where you moved to…” Baekhyun commented. “I wasn’t expecting a place like this, from a rich kid like you.”

“It’s not like I had much of a choice, after being disowned.”

“A mother and brother who died from Euphoria and such a stubborn father. Sometimes I think you even have it worse than I do.”

Sehun clicked his tongue. “Says you, after you basically made me lost my job.”

“I thought you didn’t like it that much?” Baekhyun was smiling his usual smile, and he looked so unapologetic that Chanyeol felt sick for a moment. The urgency of immediate danger was starting to fade away, and now that his brain was working again and his body had started to register pain and exhaustion, he was acutely conscious of the wound in his neck, of the little throbs of pain and the dry blood on his shirt.

And he was joking. Baekhyun had the nerve to sound amused.

 _“You,_ ” he called. Baekhyun was usually so skilled at avoiding contact, but right then he was possibly too tired, or simply not expecting someone as stupid as Chanyeol to launch himself forward and grab him by his upper arms, so he just let out a gasp and looked up when he felt fingers keeping him in place. What had happened that night had also taken a toll in him, and he didn’t look so pretty now, with bruises on his neck and dark circles under his eyes. “Do you think there’s anything funny about this or are you just some kind of sadist?”

“Release me.”

“Oh yeah, I should listen to you and let you go. Why haven’t I thought about it? You’ve helped me so much after all. By taking me in when I arrived at your city, feeding me, buying me clothes, lying to me, deceiving me and telling me you would help me get home and then trying to stab me. You’re such a good fucking person, aren’t you?”

Baekhyun blinked, gaze unfocused. “You’re hurting me!”

Haze’s shield and the warmth in Chanyeol’s own hands. Immediately, he let the boy go and Baekhyun stumbled back, one hand over a newly made hole in his upper sleeve. The skin beneath was as red as if someone had submerged it in boiling water, and Chanyeol stared at his own hands, feeling so useless. He had tried to remain strong during that whole stupid adventure, but suddenly he wanted to cry, call for his mother and hope she would listen for once.

“You! Stop that!” Sehun had gotten out and as eyeing him with obvious suspicion. Like he was the bad guy there. Like Baekhyun had to be protected from _him._

“Let him,” whispered Baekhyun.

“Yeah, let me. You probably laughed a lot, right? When I wasn’t looking. Oh, look at that idiot, eating all the lies that I feed, working for me and believing he came to this world by chance instead of, you know, for being killed. Were you enjoying it? Going all young man this, young man that while you thought about how to make me remove the shield my evil clone put on me?”

“Of course I—”

“You shouldn’t have doubted, when you went to stab me. A little wider, a little deeper and you would have gotten what you wanted. What a pity, Baekhyun. Try a bit harder next time.”

“Just. You don’t understand.” The boy looked ashen. What a poor, innocent lamb.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to. You did such a shitty job to explain after all.”

“Haze has to die!” Baekhyun’s voice almost broke when he shouted out the words. “He ruined this world and created Euphoria Syndrome, and he’s growing worse by the day, so someone needs to end him!”

“By killing _me_?”

“Have you seen him? This all isn’t about you specifically but he’s your reflection. You mentioned you have met a different version or Mr. Huang, that you know a different Sehun. Well, Haze is… he’s also Park Chanyeol, the _you_ of this world.”

Only much better looking, and more edgy, and apparently a prince of evil, royal lineage and all. Wonderful. “And?”

“Souls of both reflections are bonded, the same way both of our worlds are connected by the looking glass,” Sehun intervened to explain. “Both Haze and you were born on the same day, and one of them will cease to exist once the other is gone. It doesn’t happen immediately, we believe but Haze would have died within the week if Baekhyun…”

“Stabbed me? Come on, why don’t you say it out loud? The concept of murder sounds much better when you share it with your friends.”

“I told you, you don’t understand! This was our only choice!”

Baekhyun looked so convinced when he went on shouting like that. Maybe Chanyeol had been mistaken and he never had been the hero of that stupid quest - perhaps Baekhyun was, and he was another simple problem he had to take care of. But then, what could one expect from the unluckiest boy in the world, huh? Of both worlds.

“How awesome of you to share the details of your very important mission with me.”

“We— I tried to do the easiest thing.” At least, Baekhyun was not smiling anymore. He looked self-conscious, a little scared. Chanyeol would have punched him so he would stop making that face. He didn’t exactly want to see it. “I just told you how it goes: if we manage to kill him, and no matter in which world you are, you will die as well. And understand this - we need to end Haze, I’ll do anything in my hands to achieve that. I’m sorry to tell you, but even if you’re not like he is, you were already doomed from the moment you were born. You’re tied together, so why don’t you take the noble choice?”

“What makes you feel it’s _noble_ if you trick me into it? Even after I realized you lied for a living I decided to believe you wanted to help me, and that probably was the most stupid thing I’ve done in these last years, but at least it was I who chose it. Being brought into this world and sacrificed so you can all be happy was you playing dirty, so don’t try to pretty it up. This is not justice. It’s not fair.” Chanyeol had been furious up until that moment, but then he felt so hollow. It was of no use being frustrated, he only wanted to be alone. “I don’t care if I would have died anyway if you and your friends did whatever you wanted to do to Haze, but you called me into this place, away from my mother and the people who cared for me and everything I’ve known all my life, and you smiled to me and lied only to kill me? Do you know how used I felt? How used I feel now?”

Baekhyun bit his lip and smiled. Chanyeol never thought someone could look so incredibly bitter while doing so. “I know I am a terrible person, you don’t have to tell me that,” he said, voice quiet. Chanyeol felt a tug in his chest; pity, perhaps, or maybe only sadness. “But I still couldn’t do it. I should have cut your neck while you weren’t expecting it, in one single motion - it would have saved Insomnia. But you were right before: I hesitated. I couldn’t do it, and Haze knew. That’s why he allowed you to take the shield down.”

“That evil clone of mine sounds like an awesome person, but I still don’t feel like becoming a martyr to your cause. What I always wanted was to go back home, so maybe I should just… leave.” The mere thought of being alone in that city, with the marshall and the Exalted and whoever else looking for him, was scary enough to make him want to lock away in the bathroom and remain there indefinitely, but once again, his life until now had been a succession of unfortunate events and he had always learned to survive. “Find a way to take this shield spell by myself and cross the mirror. Maybe your friend Haze wouldn’t follow me there.”

Baekhyun took a step in him direction for the first time since they had arrived at that place, eyes wide open. “You can’t do that! You can’t go out by yourself. Haze knows you’re here. Haven’t you seen him? He’s not the kind of person who will just let you be! You’re the only weak spot he has, he’ll lock you away so no one can harm you!”

“So I am protected from people like you?”

Baekhyun’s hands were clenched into fists at his sides. “You might hate me right now, but he’s much worse than I am. He doesn’t even realize, but he’s destroying this world, making it suffocate with his miasma and his sickness. And you know what? Insomnia and your city at the other side of the looking glass are connected, so if one dies, the other will follow. Maybe you think I’m being manipulative, and perhaps that’s the only thing I know how to be, but what I’m saying is the truth. It is now, and I hate it.”

 _I still should leave,_ Chanyeol thought. He could still find someone who helped him, or go to the marshall troops Baekhyun had warned him against and check by himself if they were that bad as that liar of a boy had claimed they were. The sun wasn’t out, however, and the city at the other side of the windows was dark.

“Can we talk tomorrow?” he asked. He could use some hours of rest, and both Baekhyun and Sehun looked like they should, too. He felt a wave of relief when Baekhyun nodded in silence.

“You should take my bed,” Sehun told him. “Just this once, since you look terrible.”

“Nah, I’m fine taking the floor. Let Chanyeol have it, will you?”

Chanyeol thought that sounded like an awesome idea - he had been so wronged, so he could be selfish and have the long end of the stick just that once - but Sehun didn’t look like he was okay with that at all. “You are the one who’s been hurt the most, and that man isn’t even my friend. I’m willing to sacrifice my comfort for you, but for Haze’s reflection? Stars, no!”

“I’m not Haze,” protested Chanyeol.

“See? He’s not. And besides, I don’t think I will be able to sleep much tonight and I’m asking you, so be nice and do as I say?”

The groan that came out Sehun’s lips was more a proclamation of surrender than an objection. “Why in the stars are we even close. You, offering _my_ bed like this.”

For the first time since they had arrived, Baekhyun smiled, so softly. “Because you love me anyway. Much more than Jongdae does, in any case.”

\--

Nightmares came back that night, as vivid as they had always been back at home, but essentially different. His mother was not the monster anymore, and his other self was there instead - Haze, the Exalted, pure white over a pitch-black background, crossing the mirror to grab him by the neck and squeeze.

 _My shadow, my reflection, do you think you can run away from me? Do you believe I won’t find you?_ His hands were soft and strong, pale marble, dark veins under the skin like seams on stone. He felt so cold, weak like the child he had been when he had seen the shadows in the mirror for the first time. _Give in. Let me have you before you get more hurt than you already are._

That time, he didn’t wake up with a scream. He felt like he was suffocating and opened his eyes in silence, grasping for air. The part of him that forgot where he was in the mornings almost made him rise in alarm when he opened his eyes to a small, unfamiliar room, but then he saw the blueprints on the wall, the curved ceiling and he remembered.

He could see Baekhyun’s shape from when he was, a boy in a new white shirt, finishing to adjust the bandages on his neck. Every single moment that Chanyeol had spent with him, Baekhyun had been as well dressed as a mannequin in a men’s fashion store, from his perfectly pressed suit pants to his polished shoes and completely buttoned-up shirts. There was the first time since he knew him that he had seen him with a couple of buttons undone, even if every trace of skin below was covered in white bandages. He looked strangely _normal_ like that, bruised and quiet instead of perpetually energetic.

It made Chanyeol feel kind of sad.

“Hey,” Baekhyun called out, and Chanyeol took a moment to realize he was talking to him. He had been found out.

“Ah, hi,” he replied, proceeding to sit up on the bed. He had to remind himself that he was actually mad at Baekhyun, but he couldn’t keep the bite in his voice. He had never been good at being angry for long, even though disappointment was a different thing entirely. “Where’s Sehun?”

“He went to get Yixing as soon as the sun was up. I figured you would like to speak with him. There are some things we need to talk about after what happened last night.”

“So he left me alone with you?”

“I am not trying to attack you again, so stay calm.” There was a trace of one of Baekhyun’s usual smile on his lips, quiet brightness with a trace of caution. “I can’t even touch you, so yeah, no desire to try here. Stars, that hurt so much last time.”

Chanyeol remembered the broken shirt, the streaks of red over skin where his fingers had touched. “Are your arms okay?”

“Why are you even asking me that? I—” Baekhyun started, then stopped himself. “Yeah, it was just bruised skin. You didn’t held me in place for that long, so that doesn’t hurt.”

“But your neck does.”

“Yes. Haze’s fault, though. His for the most part, and mine. I thought that ending the problem by disposing of you would be a spectacular idea, and that Haze wouldn’t see it coming, but he’s always a step ahead and you’re his reflection, so of course he knew. It was my bad, I’m sorry I dragged you into this. And that I lied.”

“And for using me?”

“I guess.”

There was a faint melody coming from Baekhyun, the soft strings of a ballad, a slower, quieter version of the suffocating song he had been able to hear when he had tried to concentrate at Yixing’s house. He didn’t know why they were clearer now, but the sound of violins surrounded him when he moved and when he spoke. They weren’t the kind of sound Chanyeol would have identified with a boy like that. They also made him remember that Haze had said that his shield was made to harm anyone who touched him while wanting to hurt him. Baekhyun was apologizing, with soft words and an honest smile, but that didn’t change the fact that he had burns on his neck and bruises in his arms.

“So the guy you’re fighting is my reflection,” he said, because he knew that Baekhyun would have to answer. “The _me_ of this world. Where do you know him from?”

“He and I, we go way back,” replied Baekhyun after a moment of hesitation. “He’s a disgrace right now, as corrupted as anyone Blessed could get, but he wasn’t as bad years ago. We used to be close, but he’s my duty now.”

 _Close?_ “Your duty?”

“Others are fighting this war, but I am the only one who can bring him down. Even if he’s stronger than me, I will find the way. I have to.”

He looked so resolute, even with wounds on his skin and a patch over his eye. Chanyeol didn’t know if he really thought he was capable of winning, but at least he wore his scars with pride. “Isn’t he out to hurt you?” he asked, and Baekhyun looked confused for a second.

“What?”

“Back then last night. My evil clone, that Haze guy, he could have just kidnapped me to lock me somewhere as soon as I came close to the mirror, but he lost that fight because he decided to go all megalomaniac villain on you, speech included. He was having a great time there, torturing you.”

Baekhyun let out a little laugh. “He loves playing with his food, doesn’t he? That and speeches. He talks too much.”

“Did he do that to you too?”

“Do what?”

“The eye.” Chanyeol pointed at it with his open hand and nodded when Baekhyun grazed the surface of the patch with his fingers. “And don’t tell me Prosperan pirates did it.”

At that, Baekhyun smiled. “They could have done it, you know? Prosperan pirates are very violent when provoked, and I am the kind to walk around wreaking havoc,” he stated. “Although you’re more or less right. He had to do with it.”

It sounded terrible, and he wanted to know why, when and how, but Chanyeol bit his lip and forced himself to return the smile. “I knew the pirate thing sounded too surreal to be true. Also, didn’t you mention a job accident, too? How many times do you lie a day?”

“Enough for people to not know when I’m being honest. It’s my special talent.”

“Seems useful enough.”

“Hey, Chanyeol, if you want to leave this place I—”

Baekhyun took a mouthful of air, but he stopped himself when he heard the telltale noise of a key at the door. Chanyeol observed him as his shoulders clearly stiffened at it, not relaxing until Sehun came in, followed by a very concerned Yixing, in a long, black coat and round glasses. The last time Chanyeol had checked, it was still summer in Insomnia - the hot kind.

“Aren’t you dying inside of that thing?” he couldn’t help to blurt, train of thought lost.

“Ah, so you are awake,” Sehun commented, tone and expression neutral. “And you haven’t tried to punch our Baekhyun in the face. Well, that’s improvement.”

“Don’t distrust him so much, I am the unreliable one here. Though I do agree about the coat.” Baekhyun almost jumped from his chair and walked to Yixing, grimacing at the heavy wool. “Do you want to melt or something?”

“I find this attire perfectly suitable,” the other man said.

“For a funeral, maybe.”

“He insisted on wearing that before going out,” explained Sehun. “And he didn’t faint from a heatstroke when we were heading back, so I’d say it’s okay.”

“Perhaps so much time studying mirror theory made him superhuman when it comes to weather? I’ve seen him walking around in only his waistcoat and shirt in the middle of winter.”

Yixing looked genuinely confused. “Why is this conversation about me? I believed I had come here to discuss Mr. Park and the Exalted?”

The atmosphere in the room changed, suddenly heavier, and Chanyeol remembered once more that he wasn’t supposed to be joking about coats, or even talking to those people like they were the friends he had left at the other world. Sehun looked like one of them, but he was a different person. And Baekhyun… Well, Baekhyun was what he was. Even if a big part of him didn’t want to hate him.

“Yeah, I guess we should,” said Sehun. “Do you want me to make tea? I think I have a breakfast blend somewhere.”

Chanyeol didn’t feel like putting any kind of food or drink into his body, but of course Baekhyun had to nod. “Ah, please do. Tea is always the best when one has a secret agenda to discuss, don’t you think?

\--

Music was coming out from Yixing and Sehun. Chanyeol hadn’t realized until the room fell into silence, just before their big discussion started, but now he couldn’t unhear it. Yixing’s melody was a cheerful flute tone, and Sehun’s sounded like a ballad for a 2000s teenage emo band, all rockstar rebellion. He didn’t know why everyone had their own original soundtrack all of a sudden, or why Sehun’s had to be so anachronistic , but even if he could tune the music down in his head it was completely impossible to switch them off. At that rate, he was going to get a headache.

“Very well. So the Exalted is now aware of Mr. Park’s presence in this world,” was saying Yixing by the moment Chanyeol finally managed to pay full attention.

“What about that statement is ‘very well,’ exactly,” protested Sehun. “The original plan was to finish this fast and silently, and now we are stuck here with his reflection and both he and Haze are protected by a stronger shield that burns when touched.”

Yixing nodded, thoughtfully. “Mr. Park,” he finally said, all serious, “could I hold your hand for a moment?”

“Didn’t I just say he has a shield that hurts people?” Sehun was deadpanning, and Baekhyun’s expression was unreadable, but since Yixing was supposed to be a scholar of sorts and he seemed determined enough about that, Chanyeol let him grab his right hand and hold it delicately between his. He wasn’t wearing gloves, so the sensation was strange, half warm flesh on his palm and half cold steel on the back of his hand. He didn’t scream or let go, and Sehun blinked in surprise. “You are okay? Why are you okay?” He moved to grab Chanyeol’s left hand, but let go with a scream as soon as his fingers touched him. _“What in the stars?_ He burns like one of the furnaces in the Magitec Research Center! Why are you invulnerable? You’re not even Blessed.”

One look at Baekhyun was enough to guess that he knew, too. “Haze’s shield is advanced Soul Magic. It’s designed to burn those ones who want to cause Chanyeol harm.”

“Then what about you?” Sehun asked Yixing.

“I am against the Exalted, but I was always opposed to hurting this boy for it. The kind of magic this shield feeds on is born from human emotion, so it will automatically block anything negative. It is quite clever, in fact; it saves the magician the trouble of keeping it fully activated all the time.”

“And how in the world do we take that thing off?”

Chanyeol swallowed. “So you two can kill me? Who says that I want to?” he protested, and Sehun just shrugged.

“Do you have any other suggestion? Look, it’s not like you have done anything bad to me specifically, but you’re stuck here and I don’t see any other options. Baekhyun told you last night - what are you gonna do, stay here until Haze gets hold of you, or surrendering yourself to the marshall troops and have them lock you in? Besides, two reflections on the same side of the mirror… Isn’t that wrong?”

“It distorts the balance, of course. I already warned Baekhyun about it when he decided on this course of action, especially considering that it was the Exalted breaking the balance what brought the epidemic upon us.”

“Well then, I am sorry boy, and I know my brown-haired reflection at the other side is friends with you, but—”

“Wait.”

Sehun turned towards Baekhyun, who was still sitting in the old chair, now moved to face the bed. Chanyeol stared at him too, eyes wide in surprise. He looked so resolute.

“Wait for what?”

“Yixing, do you know why there are mirrors left? Why they all weren’t destroyed at the time of the Purge?” asked Baekhyun, biting his lip. “I was always told that some of them couldn’t be damaged, that they were protected by Haze because mirrors make him more powerful.”

“That is correct.”

“Well, remember the mirror I stole from Haze, the one I used to bring Chanyeol here? I tried to destroy it a year ago, when I— I tried back then, and I couldn’t, but after Chanyeol came across it, I could.”

Everyone’s eyes were on him, and the boy shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “I was wondering if you were lying when you mentioned you broke the mirror. This is unheard of,” commented Yixing. “The Exalted shielded the remaining mirrors in town after he was hunted, and you have already realized he excels at that.”

“But what if Chanyeol can reverse that somehow?”

“What?” muttered Yixing and Sehun at the same time.

 _“What?”_ repeated Chanyeol, louder.

“Yesterday night it happened again, but differently; and to be honest I don’t think Haze was expecting _that_. He was giving me his full attention and ignored his reflection, even when he knew this Chanyeol was walking towards the mirror. He laughed at him, in fact, but then Chanyeol sang, or screamed, or _something_ to the looking glass and it cracked. Just like that.”

The scene replayed in his mind, the memory still vivid. He hadn’t known what he had been doing, not exactly, but he had believed, even then, that the mirror was his only choice. “It reacted to my song. The one that I always hear.”

“And when he broke the mirror, Haze fell too. His face was all cracked for a moment, like he was one of the sick when they Splinter. And light came out from his wounds, into Chanyeol. This Chanyeol.”

“That is certainly strange,” said Yixing. And it was; now that he thought about it, he didn’t want anything related to Haze into him. “Do you feel any different?”

“I don’t,” he replied, but then he realized. “But my music is louder.”

“Haze’s power is represented by noise. Interesting.”

Baekhyun nodded. “What do you think? I was considering it and what if this Chanyeol is Haze’s opposite? Aren’t reflections different versions of the same soul? What if their power is divided between them? What if Haze grows stronger the more mirrors there are but Chanyeol becomes more powerful when those mirrors are broken?”

“And if it were like that, what do you believe our options would be?”

“If Chanyeol helped us to break those mirrors, wouldn’t that weaken Haze?”

“If your theory is correct, possibly.”

“But wouldn’t that mean making his reflection stronger?” Sehun asked, turning towards Chanyeol with a grimace. “No offense, but you know, I’ve had enough with the white version of Haze. I don’t need a black-haired clone.”

“But that guy’s not like me? I wouldn’t—” Chanyeol weakly pointed at Baekhyun’s neck. “I wouldn’t do something like that on purpose.”

“You sure? From what I’ve been told, you didn’t know you were Blessed until now. It’s easy to be harmless when you’re the weakest in the crowd, but what will happen if you get power?”

Chanyeol could almost _feel_ them now, the threads of Sehun’s melody, growing clearer like liquid gold around him. They came into focus when he raised his voice, when his heartbeat quickened. _What the hell?_ “Look, I know my life in general is like a black hole of unluckiness, but the last thing I feel like doing is relying on the Dark Side of the Force to solve that.”

“What in the stars are you talking about?”

“I won’t be evil. It’s wrong.”

“And don’t you think that the Exalted, too, thought that before he ended up like he is?” Sehun was accusingly staring at him, but he finally grew silent when Baekhyun stood up to place a hand on his shoulder.

“He feels different than Haze. I’ve been with him for a week and there are… gestures they have in common, but they are not the same.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I am. I had no regrets about killing Haze, but when it was his reflection I had to stab, the sensation was different. And Haze knew I’d hesitate, because he knew about this. So since we ended up in this situation, I believe that weakening Haze by powering up Chanyeol is the only thing we can do.”

“So what you are suggesting is breaking the other mirrors?” inquired Yixing. “It has been said, in fact, that he needs them to function, so his energy should be divided between them. If by splintering them, that energy travels from the Exalted to Mr. Park then that would indeed weaken him. However, to what end?”

“To incapacitate him. For Chanyeol to be able to break the shield.”

“And then what? Kill me? Or kill the other me so I die?” Chanyeol asked. It looked like the only option, the only viable one. “I told you before, I can’t help you do something like—”

“Wait, no. Not exactly!” replied Baekhyun. All eyes were on him and he inhaled, slowly, lips curving up in a little smile. “I was thinking, this morning. And I don’t know how safe this option is, or if it is completely possible but what if we managed to weaken Haze completely? Even if he didn’t die, what if we stripped him of all his force. He wouldn’t be able to keep corrupting the mist if he didn’t have enough magic to do so. So we could just lock him in and have Chanyeol take all the power they share back to his world. People don’t use magic there, even if they are Blessed.”

Sehun crossed his hands over his chest. “Is that even possible?”

“We would not know until we try, but it is plausible,” Yixing confirmed. “There is no way to be certain of how much of the Exalted’s power would be transferred into Mr. Park until we put this theory into motion. It will be dangerous, that much I know. It may go wrong.”

“Wronger than _this_?”

“You won’t have to do anything, Sehun. I’m willing to try.” Baekhyun looked so resolute, gaze locked on Chanyeol’s, lips pulled up in what almost looked like a grin. For someone so hurt, he truly was relentless. “But I need you to help me. Let’s incapacitate Haze, young man. You need that shield of yours to disappear to be able to go back, so let’s collaborate. I made a mistake with my first approach to this matter, and I apologize for that. I’ll say I’m sorry as many times as you want to, but join me from now on.”

Sehun huffed out loud. “Stars, Baekhyun, you’re saying all that after trying to kill him, he won’t—”

“Tell me something,” Chanyeol interrupted him, getting up. If he stood, he was clearly taller than Baekhyun, and he didn’t know how much of an advantage height could be when dealing with a man like that, but he had to take what he could. “Why the change of mind? You were quite sure about sacrificing me yesterday, even though you already knew I wasn’t like Haze.”

Baekhyun hesitated for an endless second. “Well,” he finally said. “I’ve realized that it’s not exactly fair for you to be used and pay for the things that your reflection has done. You should be given a choice.”

So there he was, Baekhyun, the prince of lies, giving him one feeble reason with the same smile he used to tell Ms. Lee how the trinkets he sold were the most wondrous items in town. That man could convince the police to let him go and Sehun to lose the job he needed. He had the self-imposed duty to bring Haze down and he kept his weapons, mortal and sharp, under his sleeves.

Chanyeol couldn’t return home on his own. He needed someone like Baekhyun, and Baekhyun needed him. And so, he had asked for a reason, and he had gotten a reply. That one, specifically, plus multicolored threads of sound.

Baekhyun’s very own melody was a fucking mess.

“Okay, I accept,” he said. “I believe you.”

Baekhyun blinked, lips parting. “You do?”

A beautiful mess was always better than a whisper of violins that made you think of sadness, of fear. “Wasn’t it what you wanted?” asked Chanyeol, grinning. “I thought your whole point was trying to convince me.”

For the first time ever, Baekhyun looked taken aback. Like _really_ taken about. “Ah, well, yes. I’m thankful.”

“I have a condition, though.”

“Which is?”

Baekhyun was cute when surprised; cute when he had to let go of the control he always had in hold and just wait for an answer. Chanyeol didn’t exactly trust him, not yet, but he had to admit it was endearing. “Cut out the _young man_ thing, will you? It makes you sound like a Jay Gatsby wannabe. Not to be offensive or anything.”

At that, Baekhyun laughed, and the knots in his melody untangled a little bit. “Will do,” he said. “Chanyeol.”

 

* * *

 

 **Seventh Act - Offertory**  
 _Hostias et preces tibi, Domine,_  
laudis offerimus;  
tu suscipe pro animabus illis,  
quarum hodie memoriam facimus.

 

_The world was such an ugly place._

_It all swarmed under the surface: hatred, sadness, injustice, if one only stayed still enough to see. Every light had its own shadow, and every one was thick and hideous, darker than the deepest night. They took hold of you and held you under the surface of reality, staining, corrupting, destroying. Those shadows couldn’t be removed, they were too ancient and too firmly rooted to be simply weeded out._

_Chanyeol knew that. Chanyeol had always known._

_“Help me,” a voice called. Familiar, shaken with grief. He recognized the sobs and looked down to see his own mother, kneeling at his feet. She was surrounded by the demons of sadness and madness. Distrust. Pain. “You made like this. Make it go away.”_

_The buzz around them was deafening. His mother was unable to hear it, he knew, but her demons did, shaking their horned heads as if that could block the frequency, piercing Chanyeol with their coal-like eyes. They wanted him to stop, and a part of him desired to submit, but he clenched his teeth and raised his hand and turned the noise louder._

_The demons roared. His mother screamed._ Stop, he wanted to stop immediately, _but the pain was necessary, the pallor in her skin was just a collateral effect. What was that in the bigger scheme of things?_

_“It will be over soon,” he whispered, kneeling in front of his mother when he saw she was silently crying. Her monsters were screeching now, over the noise in that big, white room. There was no place for shadows when everything lacked color - they would be gone in minutes, seconds, vanished like they had never existed._

_He needed to go on._ He needed to stop.

_Cracks were breaking skin now, his mother’s eyes were turning blue. Expressionless, like a corpse’s, the pain gone. She had stopped sobbing, at least, and remained still as the monsters surrounding her tried to reach her. But they weren’t welcome, they had no strength, and they started to come undone from the seams, shadows becoming light and his mother’s grief fading into a big smile as they disappeared._

_“Are you happy now?” he asked. Of course she had to be, and still he felt slightly disappointed when he didn’t get his answer. The body in front of him was immobile and stiff, like it belonged to a human-shaped doll instead of a human being. He pushed it to one side with the tip of his immaculate boot, and sighed when it fell to the ground like a stringless puppet. The skin was hard and broken, made of glass, eyes open and lips frozen in that euphoric grin. “So a failure, eh? This is more difficult that I thought it’d be.”_

Stop it! _Chanyeol wanted to scream._ Just stop!

_When he looked down, the body on the floor wasn’t his mother’s but the figure of a young girl, cracked skin stained with crystalized tears. “I’m sorry I couldn’t ease your pain,” he said, voice so high-pitched it surprised him, and when he reached out to caress her face, the fingers he saw were tinier and chubbier than his own - they belonged to someone smaller, to the hand of a child. “But don’t you worry, your suffering hasn’t been in vain. I’ll be luckier next time.”_

“No!”

-

When Chanyeol woke up, curled on the mattress of Baekhyun’s tiny guest room, the sun was already up and Insomnia was full of life at the other side of his window. It had been such a long time since he felt so much relief to see a place in the other world, or to check that he was still wearing mostly black. He didn’t like white, he decided. It was eerie. It reminded him too much of nightmares.

He was still trying to put his thoughts into order when he heard three knocks on his door. “Are you okay?” a voice called him, and Chanyeol internally groaned. Having nightmares was a thing (and they were apparently evolving into new forms of fear, which was just _wonderful_ ) but screaming out loud until other people realized how much of a mess he was at night was a whole other level.

“Yeah, I just had a rough awakening, nothing serious,” he replied loud enough to be heard from the other side.

“You sounded preoccupied. But hey, can I come in? I don’t feel comfortable having to shout through the doors at this time in the morning.”

Chanyeol looked around. For a place so small, the room was such a mess, but he guessed it couldn’t be helped. He had previously decided that piling all of his clothes up on the chair _and_ the desk was a good enough idea - and it had seemed like one, in retrospect - and he didn’t have the time to hide it all in the wardrobe or anything to save face. “Well, I’m still in your apartment, so it’s not like you need permission.”

“I am a very polite man, so I asked just in case,” stated Baekhyun before effectively coming in. Chanyeol didn’t know what time it was exactly, but that boy already looked too neatly dressed for someone that was precariously opening the door with one piece of toast in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. He wore a high collared shirt, a big ribbon-like tie hiding any trace of bandages on the skin beneath. “Wow, you’ve managed to have more shoes on the floor than I do. I’m proud of you. Yixing would be, too: for someone so meticulous, he doesn’t like order.”

“So what are we, the brotherhood of the untidy? I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”

“It depends on who you ask.” Baekhyun shrugged. “By the way, do you want breakfast?”

“You made some for me too?”

“Not really. It would have been a great option to make amends if I only was that kind of guy. You can make something yourself, though. There’s… stuff in the kitchen.”

And there was Baekhyun, the king of being obliging. He was grinning at him, and Chanyeol had to laugh, even though the music around him was still that unfitting violin ballad, if only a bit fainter than other times. Chanyeol _knew_ it was for the best to keep an eye on him despite them working together, but unwillingly hearing that melody every time they spoke was making him feel like he was eavesdropping into something he shouldn’t. “I am not really hungry,” he admitted, while he did his best to block the melody out, and felt satisfied enough when the sound of his own voice made him focus enough to make it mingle with the background tune.

“Why not? You need the energy. Was it whatever that woke you up like that?”

Baekhyun looked interested enough for him to elaborate, but Chanyeol just let out a sigh. “Kind of. But nah, I’m only a bit… overwhelmed about this whole situation. I suddenly have an evil clone and you are at war with him, and he wants me because of the cool magical powers I didn’t know I had. So I can’t blame my stomach for being a little queasy.”

“No, but you should eat.”

“First you try to end me and now you’re giving me health advice?” asked Chanyeol, voice breaking a bit in laughter.

He had meant it as a joke, but Baekhyun’s song came back into his mind in a high, brief peak of sound as the other boy stopped eating mid-chew. After, there was a long second of silence, and then the soft thump of wood as he leaned against the closed door. “I might not be the best person in this city, but even if that would kill you, I don’t want you starved. We have a plan B now, don’t we?”

 _And who guarantees that it’s going to work?_ Chanyeol wondered, how much of Baekhyun’s apparent confidence in their new course of action was faith on it working, how much were lies and how much was sheer desperation. Baekhyun could still change his mind - he could decide to have him locked or surrendered if their current plan to weaken Haze went wrong. And Chanyeol knew that, and he was prepared to run if he needed to, but he couldn’t help to feel curious.

He could have asked, even if Baekhyun didn’t want to answer. In the end, he didn’t. “So what do we do now?” he said instead. “No matter how much you complain, I’m skipping my breakfast, but regardless of me eating or not, we still have a villain to dethrone, don’t we? I’m not especially experienced in fighting evil, so that makes you the veteran one _and_ the party leader. So tell me, where do we start?”

Baekhyun tilted his head back to look at him. He looked a bit like an hero if one had enough imagination - he had brightly colored hair and an eyepatch, and even the anime-protagonist-typical piece of toast, and Chanyeol was almost tempted to get one for himself, only for the effect.

“Ah, well, first of all we need to enhance you. Or your skills, to be precise. There was something that Yixing told me that gave an idea, so, not to hype it out or anything but, how would you feel if you had your own, custom made weapon?”

—

Chanyeol was starting to realize that one didn’t need to leave the populated center of Insomnia to find all kind of illegal stuff. His first instinct would have been to think otherwise, since the uniformed marshall police was everywhere, patrolling the streets in their fancy uniforms and stopped at corners in their automobiles, but you only needed to go where to go to find all sorts of glimpses of the underworld that blossomed behind their backs.

“They have been too concerned by Euphoria these last years,” Baekhyun informed him as he jumped off a crowded tram car and left the wide main avenue for a smaller street. They had arrived in what looked like a business-like district, buildings tall, lean and regular, and women and men in morning suits rushing up and down the sidewalks. Fountain pens were shown for sale in a shop just in front from where they were, fancy and shiny and certainly expensive. “And that allows other people to do what they want and where they want to. The marshall people will get angry if they are problematic of course, but the key is keeping a low profile and not breaking the rules _that_ much.”

“Define _that much_.”

Baekhyun didn’t reply. He was walking towards a set of stairs that descended underground at the far end of the street. The entrance was sealed by low iron gates, so no one was going up or down, but Chanyeol still recognized the dark metal structure around it, with its iron arch and the letter-less sign over it. As everything else in that city, the design was intricate and full of details, the dark metal shaped like vines, but the shape of it looked strangely familiar. “Do you have a subway here in Insomnia?” he asked, more incredulous than he would have liked to admit. “Like, an underground train?”

“Ah, yes: the Insomnia Metropolitan. It was quite an ambitious project, built to replace the tram system in town, but even though it was almost complete, it finally got discarded,” explained Baekhyun. He looked around when he arrived to the gates, and simply pushed them open and gestured for Chanyeol to walk past them when he saw no traces of police. He didn’t seem to care they were doing that in broad daylight, and the pedestrians around them simply ignored them. “Public transport that moves underground doesn’t seem exactly safe when the sick of Euphoria turn crazy by twilight.”

Chanyeol froze mid step. He still remembered Mr. Huang all too well. “Where in the world are you taking me?” he muttered, but Baekhyun just _winked_ at him and laughed.

“Euphoria Syndrome has to do with nighttime, not with darkness, but you know, people are superstitious. Still, you’ve got your own shield, so if someone should be scared, that would be me. Here I am, after all - unprotected.” Chanyeol doubted that ‘unprotected’ and ‘Baekhyun’ were meant to fit together in the same sentence, but he added no further comment. “The marshall has been meaning to shut down every station, just in case the sick use some of the tunnels to hide or something, but in the end the troops are always too busy patrolling to do so, and so the biggest ones remain open. They are ideal for business.”

“What kind of business?”

“Shady one, obviously. Not too gravely illegal, because that would mean a raid, but just the appropriate degree of questionable. But hey, you’ll see. Let’s go!”

The tunnel beyond the steps was exceptionally well-kept for a place that was supposed to be abandoned. As in everywhere else in Insomnia, the walls and the floors were black, made of glossy stone and bricks that seemed to absorb the rays of summer sunlight. With a certain degree of dismay, Chanyeol realized that there was no trace of artificial lights in the corridor, and that their way disappeared in pitch-black darkness. He was hoping that Baekhyun knew of a hidden illumination switch or something when he saw the other boy’s hand start to glow, first dimly and then more brightly.

“Ah, I missed this,” he said, his satisfied face illuminated in white from below. All the other times Chanyeol had seen Baekhyun make use of his Blessed status, the power had come in a burst, seeking to blind and to protect, but now the energy looked dimmer, softer, almost warm. The glow followed the patterns of the veins in his hands, like his own blood was made of starlight. It looked strangely pretty, natural on him. Like that, it was almost easy to mute his mother’s warnings about magic being a dark thing. “Chanyeol? Can I ask what are you doing?”

The boy parted his lips in embarrassed shock. He didn’t mean to stare. He didn’t even know if gaping at someone’s demonstrations of magic was considered rude in that city. Because it probably was. It had to be. “Ah, I thought using your powers was forbidden,” he started, realizing soon after that something like that wasn’t probably the best choice of words either. “I mean, you told me.”

“I did, and I would get in trouble if I get caught, but I do enough illegal activities in my life as it is, so another one isn’t going to hurt, don’t you think?” White puffs of mist were floating around his feet, surrounding him, and Baekhyun looked at them almost fondly. “No matter what the marshall and company say, but every young man needs to exercise his powers once in a while and besides, I brought no other source of light. Did you, by any chance?”

“How was I supposed to? You never mentioned we were coming into a tunnel!”

“Then it’s solved! So come on, follow me!”

It was surprising in a sense, that there was a certain similitude between the city above and those tunnels. All about Insomnia seemed shiny and new, glossy black and polished glass, but if one knew where to look, decadence appeared like cracks in a mirror image - closed stores, boarded windows, abandoned apartments and Euphoria warnings in every sign, colored bright to conceal the truth. Those corridors were the same: they appeared so well kept that they seemed new under Baekhyun’s magic light, but Chanyeol could see the streaks of dark humidity on the walls (darker than black), the wood and stone sealing the corridors at their sides, and hear the soft traces of music that came from the shadows, low and urgent, like eyes watching them.

“We’re not alone,” he muttered as Baekhyun guided the way into a broad subterranean hall, with its metal ticket booth - its whole structure shaped like a cage of iron vines - and blackish gates leading to the platforms beyond. For a moment, Chanyeol thought he would jump over them, like one of those kids who skipped paying train fares by leaping over the closed barriers, but he just pushed one of the staff gates open and walked across. Of course. The station was not in use after all.

“What did you think? Didn’t I told you that there are other businesses here? It was obvious that we wouldn’t be. There’s a second city below Insomnia. What surprises me is that you managed to hear someone. They _were_ being quiet.”

“I didn’t exactly hear them,” replied Chanyeol, crossing the open staff gate as fast as he could, because Baekhyun was already walking away and the fragments of music were getting longer, the bursts of notes almost aggressive. The boy shot him a slightly puzzled look, but Chanyeol shook his head before he could ask. “How much deeper are we going?”

“We are not even deep, but we’re close. The place we’re going… Well, the owners have quite the name, you see. They managed to keep the most visually appealing spot. That’s why I don’t mind coming down even if I could convince the boss to go up to my apartment.”

“You take what you have when it comes to having fun,” groaned Chanyeol, and Baekhyun laughed, as vividly as he had when they had first met. For some reason, there was something about that laughter that he liked, and something else that made him uneasy. It was a strain in the sound of it, like a dissonance.

“I see you’re starting to know me,” Baekhyun commented, all naturally energetic. _Figures,_ Chanyeol was about to reply.

At the other side of the hall, the way branched into two hallways, one of them signaled as ‘Line 3, North District’ while the other one led to ‘Line 3, Moonlight Park.” That was the turn Baekhyun took, his palms still gleaming white and golden. The air was cooler the further they descended - first one set of stairs, then other - and the sound started getting lower the deeper they travelled until only Baekhyun’s violins and his own background music remained. Chanyeol had been mindlessly following the other boy when he realized that there was light around him - not the soft one that came from Baekhyun’s hands, but something certainly electric, in a shade of darker orange.

New waves of sound started to come up from the tunnel, the lack of a clear sense of vision enhancing all his other senses. There was more than one melody, that was certain, and the notes were entangled in a waltz of chaos that made his head pound a bit, but there was… something he could recognize - the guitar riffs of a musical piece that sounded suspiciously like the deep-red chords of an emo ballad.

Chanyeol stopped where he was. _“Sehun?”_

Baekhyun turned around to look up at him. “How did you—?”

He got flagrantly ignored as Chanyeol just rushed down the stairs, following the sound with his brow furrowed. The black tunnel turned wide when he reached the bottom step, walls opening into the domed ceiling of an abandoned Insomnia Metro station. Line 3, headed for Moonlight Park, the sign indicated, and even if the cars were not running and the platform was empty, the whole room seemed in stasis, like frozen in a dream that was never, ever becoming real again. There were adverts on the walls, of young smiling woman in morning dresses and mustachioed gentlemen. The ventilation fans were running in the ceiling, slowly turning in the dimness, filtering the air. And even if the whole platform was meant to be concealed in shadows, a single metro train rested on the tracks, the doors of the closest car open, warm orange light coming from inside, a clear invitation for them to walk in.

And under the threshold, gun in hand, was Oh Sehun in the flesh.

Chanyeol had one thousand questions, a hundred things he was trying to figure out. “What the fuck?” he asked in a blatant outburst of eloquence.

“Ah, it’s Haze’s reflection,” replied Sehun, no trace of surprise in his voice. “Baekhyun mentioned you’d come to my store today.”

“Did he? And this is a store? Why do you have a store in a subway station?”

“It’s not _his._ He just works here, sort of part time, to develop his, you know, hobby. You could say he’s an apprentice, even though that term doesn’t seem to have _grandeur_ enough for him.” Baekhyun finally appeared in the platform, all graceful movements and a cheeky smile. Sehun didn’t look happy at all with his remark, and made a conscious effort to appear more annoyed than usual, but Baekhyun walked to him and patted him in the back. _Endearingly_. Chanyeol earned a death glare when he couldn’t hold in a chuckle. “Now take me to your master, will you? Where’s my dearest friend hiding?”

“I have no master,” protested Sehun. “I am a designer and an engineer.”

“Whatever you say, my boy. Whatever you say.”

Brushing him off with a playful grin and an airy hand gesture, Baekhyun walked past the other boy and into the train. There was another person inside, Chanyeol could tell, a noisy, loud fanfare of trumpets resounding chaotically over the rest of the music around. The thing was as clamorous as the soundtrack to a riot, and as soon as the boy focused on it, he had to try his best to _shut it off._ It would have been a very inspiring military march of sorts if it wasn’t so… uproarious. _Who the fuck has that much noise in their head, for god’s sake?_

Baekhyun’s voice came in, all merry. “Ah, hi Jongdae! Long time no see!”

Jongdae was Baekhyun’s friend, the first he had met, if Chanyeol remembered correctly. The one who had been waiting for them in Baekhyun’s apartment and had commented on Chanyeol’s not-so-wonderful perm. It was someone he knew, at least, and that in a sense was relieving, so the boy stepped forward to greet him. He was about to enter into the metro car when he felt something in the air change - or, more specifically, he _heard it_ in the cadence of the fanfare around them.

He couldn’t quite place it, couldn’t tell why, but there was something in the sound that made it piercing, sharp like a spear, the sudden aggressiveness of it precise like a warning. _What even—?_

“Baekhyun,” greeted Jongdae, and Chanyeol snapped out of his almost-trance and stepped forward. The man was as he remembered him, dressed in worker’s clothes in brown and white, dark haired, dark eyed and more than a bit feline-looking. He looked strangely at home where he stood, in the middle of an out-of-service subway car in the middle of an abandoned station. “And Haze’s reflection too, I see,” he added when he saw Chanyeol walk into the train. “I was informed that the original plan by Baekhyun very obviously backfired, and so we are supposed to help _you_ get stronger now.”

Disagreement could easily be heard in Jongdae’s tone, and in the music beyond. It was clear that the man wasn’t enjoying his presence there, but at least the fanfare surrounding him had shifted again - from plain disdain into a lazy melody of soft dislike. Chanyeol felt a bit dizzy, overwhelmed by the effort of trying to involuntarily decipher a single tune out of all the noise while consciously trying not to hear it _._

_You should as well try to listen. That’s what your power is for, so focus your mind and let it in. If not, what is the purpose of being Blessed? You’re touched by the stars, accept what you are and let me in._

“I am not only Haze’s reflection,” he said out loud, clenching his teeth, partly to answer Jongdae and partly to address the annoying thoughts in his own head. He should have been safe in his mind, at least. That was where he couldn’t be touched. “Seeing you here, I assume you are in Baekhyun’s side, aren’t you? I am the one agreeing to help you all after you played dirty on me, so please remember that I have a name.”

“You obviously do. And so does Haze.”

Baekhyun walked in between the both of them, hands help up in an appeasing gesture. “Hey, you two. We came here for help, not to argue. Came we just… move forward with all this? We have much to do now that Chanyeol’s with us.”

A new, sharp peak of aggressiveness grew in Jongdae’s mind. “Very well, Byun, of course you’re right. What did you come to my humble shop for, exactly? You didn’t tell Sehun why beforehand.”

“Ah, because I love coming to your store, of course. It’s an awesome place, Chanyeol, don’t you think? Didn’t I tell you it was worth the trip.”

To tell the truth, Chanyeol had been too concentrated in the threads of sound and in the way they engulfed Jongdae every time he spoke to take and appropriate look at his surroundings, and he couldn’t help to gasp when he finally did. The metro car had appeared windowless from the dim platform, but the boy realized the windows had been painted dark brown from the inside. It was a welcome change, to stand in a place in Insomnia that wasn’t black, or white, or grey. The ceiling above his head was cream colored, turned slightly yellowish by the electric lights that flickered over the doors. Some of the original seats still remained, two rows of dark maroon benches meant to accommodate crowds of travelers who would never go past the station gates. And hanging on the walls, and even from the ceiling, were… _things._

There was weapons, of course, beautifully carved knives and guns and even swords, but there was much more. An ebony and silver cane, hanging from one of the walls like it was a trophy. A top hat, on one of the seats. A metallic arm, surprisingly reminiscent of Yixing’s artificial hand and even what looked like a suit of armor, glowing softly while it sat on one of the benches, close to the door. Blueprints were everywhere too, plastered to the walls and on the desk at the far end of the car, plans and drawings like the ones Sehun had had at his office and at home, but only more complex, with far more detail and annotations. Chanyeol could understand by seeing that why Baekhyun thought the trip was worth the effort - the place looked part armory, part toyshop and part mad inventor laboratory.

“What’s all this?” he asked.

“Magitec.” Baekhyun grinned at him like it was the most obvious and wonderful thing in the world. “Who doesn’t love magitec?”

“You shouldn’t, Byun,” groaned Jongdae. “It always surprises me that you do, so much, considering your circumstances.”

Baekhyun’s song dimmed, the violins rising up in a shrill before they felt silence. “Oh, come on, what is not to love?” he said, laughing. “And still, we’re not here to talk about me, now are we? You’ve agreed to help us, so go on and do so. I have a couple of very interesting ideas.”

“I am not really sure about your great ideas,” Sehun chimed in, falling onto one of the empty seats with a frown. There was a ceiling fan over their heads, slowly turning, and casting his face in light and shadow. “This guy, I’ll admit he looks harmless and lost enough, but I still don’t know if we should trust someone with no fashion sense.”

Chanyeol blinked at Sehun. “What does that have to do with anything?” The other boy shrugged, and Baekhyun laughed.

“Oh, come on, he’s pretty. And he’s wearing black with black, which always goes well. He’ll look good enough with one of your designs. Give it all a chance, yes?”

Sehun was talking about fashion and saying he was harmless. Baekhyun was calling him pretty. Chanyeol didn’t know if he should feel offended, flustered or if he was better off believing they were all mad.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Sehun.

“Keep in mind what happened last time. What always happens, Byun,” added Jongdae, with another peak of trumpets. “I don’t want to help in creating another monster.”

After a long instant of silence, Baekhyun sighed, crossing his arms over his chest, fingers tapping on his sleeve. “I can’t offer you certainty if that’s what you’re asking, you know that.” Again that mess, that beautiful mess, audible over everything else. “But this is the only way to weaken Haze. I know it, deep down. It’s our only choice. Will you trust me with this?”

“I’ll try to,” Sehun replied. He didn’t sound like he was lying.

“I’ll work with you,” added Jongdae. “What’s left to lose anyway? We are already being suicidal enough as it is. So, what do you need?”

Pacing around the car, Baekhyun grazed the strange set of armor with his fingers, stopped for a while in front of an ornamented revolver before coming to a halt before the silver and black cane. He was being observed by Jongdae with the zeal of a shopkeeper watching a child dance in the middle of a glass store. Like Baekhyun was going to twirl and break something. Like he would snap and destroy everything, just because it was at the reach of his hand as he could.

There was only gentleness in him, however, as he reached for the cane and took it off his hook, delicateness as he held it with long, slender fingers. “We need a weapon of sorts for a boy who loves music,” he said, soft smile on his lips. “So he can fight his own battles better, faster. So he can keep his focus.”

“You have something in mind, don’t you?” Sehun said, back straightening with interest. “Magitec?”

“Magitec. Chanyeol here plays guitar, and he can have access to the mirrors - open them, crack them - with music. That’s the way his Soul Magic manifests.” Baekhyun caressed the cane, shifting its weight from hand to hand, testing its balance. “I’ve seen him using it by instinct, but I’m afraid that won’t be enough. Haze’s playing games now, but if we get serious, if we become a threat to him, he’ll strike back. And he’ll be lethal, I know it, he’ll attack to any weak spots we have, so we need to cover our own backs. We need a tool to improve Chanyeol’s focus, something to amplify and concentrate the strength he already has, to make music louder than noise.”

“There are magitec devices that would allow that,” Jongdae said with a frown. “But to make them react to music Soul Magic is—”

“What if you have them embedded into a musical instrument?” Baekhyun interrupted him. “A guitar, for example.”

Jongdae looked at him like he had gone mad. “That’s impossible. No regular instrument would endure such a refining process. Magitec is aggressive on the items it is applied on.”

He looked quite certain on his refusal, but Baekhyun was still smiling, surrounded by violins and chaos and determination. Chanyeol didn’t know what he tried to achieve, but he found himself looking at him all the same, almost willing to believe into what he said. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one.

“It could be done,” Sehun was muttering, a glow of passion in his eyes that Chanyeol didn’t quite recognize. His own friend, back at the other side of the looking glass, would never be so enthusiastic about something that involved working or thinking so much. To tell the truth, he never was so enthusiastic about _anything_ , and the boy felt a pang in his chest. “If we designed a specific instrument for it. Something that wouldn’t break.”

Baekhyun clapped once, grinning. “So you _can_ do that, Mr. Engineer? We’re counting on you.”

“We didn’t even agree on a price,” started Jongdae.

“Well, you’re my accountant, you know how much I can afford.” Baekhyun took hold of the cane then, his fingers turning white at the pressure as he wielded it like a sword, slaying an invisible enemy in front of him with liquid grace. Chanyeol, who was standing just behind him, took a step back when he say a small blade protrude from the tip of the staff, like an scorpion’s sting, quick and sharp and almost invisible. “Can you add this one to my tab, too? The design is really cool, you outdid yourself.”

“That weapon’s not for you,” Jongdae said with a sigh. “I worked so hard on it, Byun. Quit playing around.”

“It’s not playing around if I can use it,” replied Baekhyun. “And if I can pay. Name your price, my friend. It’s not like I throw parties for the sake of it after all - every young man needs rewards for his efforts every once in a while.”

—

Jongdae had protested, like a grumpy kid who didn’t want to part with his most prized possession. Chanyeol thought he wouldn’t win, but in the end it had been Baekhyun who had walked out of the metro car looking oh-so-smug and triumphant, elegant silver and black cane under his arm.

“It has a hidden blade,” he had stated, as if that alone was reason enough to pay all the money he had on him for a weapon he hadn’t needed half an hour ago. “I love hidden blades.”

Chanyeol’s penny-pinching spirit innerly cringed at the comment. It wasn’t like he could complain, not after Baekhyun had agreed to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a custom guitar (not to speak about all the pair of shoes that were all over his bedroom floor) but the part of him that was used to slaving himself into three part-time jobs couldn’t help to think that Baekhyun cared about saving for the future just as much as one of those badass rappers who burned money for fun in their videoclips.

“Don’t you have other hidden blades?” he couldn’t help but ask, as they ascended the second set of stairs that would take them to the big underground hall of the station. “Don’t you wear long sleeves because of that?”

Baekhyun chuckled. “Perhaps. I am a magician of the night, Chanyeol, you won’t convince me to reveal my tricks.”

On the way back, Sehun had decided to accompany them and was leading the way, an exceptionally old fashioned lamp in hand. It looked like something that would be used in a mine, Chanyeol thought, as the other boy waited for them atop the stairs, and made everything seem darker, sharper, than Baekhyun’s own light. He wondered if Sehun would go with them all the way back to the surface, but he stopped at the ticket gates, his perpetually annoyed expression more blatant than ever on his face.

“Can you go on by yourselves?” he inquired, eyes first onto Baekhyun’s grinning face, then flickering down to his still glowing hands.

“I’ve walked into this place a thousand times, Sehunnie, it’s not like I’m going to get lost on my way out. Chanyeol says he’s the king of unluckiness, but truth be spoken he’s not that bad.”

“Do you want my lamp?”

Baekhyun raised his own hands. “No need,” he stated, but Sehun huffed and gave his old fashioned light to Chanyeol as soon as he approached. “Here, make yourself useful. Don’t let this idiot use his powers that much. They are not meant to be wasted as a flashlight.”

“I’ll get rusty!” Baekhyun protested.

Being honest, Chanyeol had to idea about what to do with an old mining lamp, but he had felt a change in the melody, both for Baekhyun and Sehun, and he found himself accepting the light before he was able to realize what he was doing. One look at Baekhyun, who was now staring at him in the mock offense of someone who has been betrayed by all his friends, was enough for Chanyeol to discover tiny beads of sweat in his temples, plastering the tip of his bangs to his skin.

“I need to feel useful too!” he said, not letting Baekhyun speak when the boy parted his lips. “You pay for my stuff, you show me around, you come up with the plans. At least let me be the lamp boy.”

Baekhyun shrugged, raising an eyebrow, but the light eventually faded from his hands, and Chanyeol felt the weight of Sehun’s hand patting him on the back once, firmly. All three of them were alone then, no other melodies in the distance, no traces of human presence.

“I’ll come to deliver the guitar to your apartment when we’re finished. We don’t have many orders these days, so Jongdae will hurry up.”

“Pester him a bit for me, will you? He loves it, deep down.”

“Will do.” Sehun paused for a moment, eyes fixed in the stairs he had come from before he gave in and asked. “Where are you two going first, after we deliver the guitar to you? You need to… break the remaining mirrors, don’t you? The Blessed Order have one, are you going to them?”

“To the wizards?” Baekhyun huffed. “I don’t know where to find them. I could look for them, of course. I’ll have to look for them eventually, in fact, but I don’t feel like starting this quest by begging to people who dislike me.”

“But aren’t you one of them?” Chanyeol asked. He realized too late - _again -_ that perhaps his question had been unfortunate, but Baekhyun just shrugged at him, smiling like that all was obvious.

“I am Blessed, but that doesn’t mean the Order is willing to help me. Grumpy little wizards, they are, not really interested in trusting decent human beings. Or me, for that matter.”

“And the marshall does?” That was where Baekhyun and Yixing had said the remaining mirror was, at the marshall’s residence, and the mere idea of going there to make it splinter it sounded worse than bad. “Are we just going to him and asking if we can break the mirror he’s keeping?”

At this, Baekhyun shook his head. “Just so you know, the marshall is a she. And no, she doesn’t trust me either, _but_ we’ll manage to find a way to get what we want. It’s exciting, kind of. We get to mingle with the big shots and I get to make use of the contacts I have.”

“You’re crazy,” Sehun muttered, and somehow, Chanyeol agreed.

“I am charming,” corrected Baekhyun, and both concepts were not exclusive, because Chanyeol also thought he was. Because in his own, messy way, at least that boy moved forward and made you buy his pretty shiny lies he dropped on the way. When he spoke, his plans almost seemed easy.

Stupid and reckless, but achievable. The problem came when one had to put them into action.

“Don’t expect me to get you two out if you get locked in for going into places you shouldn’t,” Sehun said, still frowning. It sounded like a last warning, but Baekhyun laughed it off like everything else.

“Don’t worry about that and concentrate on working on what we asked you instead. I want a pretty guitar, you hear me? Give me something worth of a hero.”

At that Sehun shook his head, almost offended. “I obviously will. Who do you take me for? Design is everything - comfort and beauty and efficiency. You can’t expect me not to deliver a high quality product.”

“Tell Jongdae to help, he’s your boss after all. But well, with that said, off we go, Chanyeol and I. We’ll be hearing from you soon, I hope.”

“Yeah. Don’t strain yourself, you hear me?”

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Baekhyun bidder him goodbye and signaled Chanyeol to get going, leaving the hall and a still frowning Sehun in the darkness. The boy probably knew how to return to the platform without a source of light - the way back consisted on two sets of stairs down after all - but Chanyeol felt a little uneasy when he saw him disappear in the shadows. Without his presence there, the fragments and the heaviness in the air came back, the sound reaching him like they were surrounded by a wall of cold water.

Baekhyun had told him before that there were other stores underground, illegal shopkeepers like Jongdae and Sehun who didn’t have quite as much predicament, but the boy didn’t feel curious _at all_ to know what they could be selling. As cool as the abandoned metro train looked, he hoped he did not have to go down into any Insomnia metro station again.

They had been walking for five minutes when Chanyeol decided to speak up, if only to tune down the voices. “That Sehun, he’s so different than mine,” he whispered. He didn’t know how close the other people in the tunnels were, or if it was safe to talk, but Baekhyun, walking a couple of steps ahead of him, didn’t seem to mind about anyone eavesdropping.

“How come?”

“Mine… Mine’s a bit of a fashionista. He’s a bit spoiled; his parents are rich, so he gets expensive clothes and watches and phones, and even though he works part time to get more. Not that he does that much at work, but still.”

“Sounds a bit like our Sehunnie, though,” Baekhyun said, looking back at him while he advanced. “He doesn’t have that much money because he lost the support of his father along the way, but he still likes material stuff _and_ used to slack off when he worked at the Magitec Research Center.”

“Yeah, but this one…” Chanyeol had never seen his best friend being passionate about anything. He enjoyed life, he joked with him and stared at Kyungsoo with his best annoyed face every time the other boy was a bore, but he had never talked about anything with the fire of enthusiasm behind his eyes. He had never bragged about being excellent at anything as he had obviously done with the guitar he was supposed to build for Chanyeol. The Sehun he knew would never hang blueprints on his walls, or use his free time to work in an illegal store under someone like Jongdae just because he _liked_ what he was doing. “He’s more… He seems to have a purpose in life and tries hard for it. My friend, well, I care for him a lot, but he’s much more passive than this boy.”

“It seems difficult to believe,” Baekhyun teased, but then he fell silent. “Maybe your Sehun is the weaker reflection,” he added, voice so low that Chanyeol doubted for a moment that he was meant to hear it.

“Weaker reflection?”

“Nah, forget it, that thing is just something that Haze says.” Baekhyun’s voice was still quiet. He didn’t say anything else, but Chanyeol remembered. _My weaker self_ was something that Haze had called _him._ He didn’t want to ask, but of course his mouth was always faster than his mind.

“Do you believe that?” _I am the weak one?_

_Yes._

Baekhyun stopped walking. Turned around. The melody around him was so overwhelming sometimes, and it should have been characteristic of him, if only the chords fit. “I— What? No, not really. Or well, I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to imply that you or your friend are not as strong as other people, so don’t feel disheartened, okay? Maybe Sehunnie here has a purpose because he found out something he loves doing. So perhaps you should consider introducing him to design when you go home. What do you think about that?”

“Design of what?” Chanyeol said with an amused huff. Clothes? Cars? Travel itineraries for faraway, exotic places? He would probably use _him_ as a test subject for any project he embarked on. That was what friends were for. “The prospect of giving him something to do scares me.”

“It probably should, in fact.” Baekhyun was standing there, all merry, cheeks slightly colored red while a cloud of violins danced around him, like an unwilling partner, a voiceless song. Chanyeol felt, when he stopped to look at him, that he wanted to become the color crimson when everything about him screamed blue. Pale blue, like the sky on a cloudy day. The one that was almost grey. The kind that was soft, and sharp, and pretty.

Knowing - guessing - made Chanyeol sad. He had tried to get used, but he still felt like a liar. Baekhyun was the type to keep secrets, to guard himself in his own mirror maze, but even if Chanyeol had needed to do it too - to his mother, to his friends - he had never liked to hide. For others, perhaps it has been need, but his own shields had always been made of fear.

And he was afraid, it was impossible not to, but he didn’t want to be anymore. He had decided to work with Baekhyun, and if he wanted it to work, he was certain that at least one of them needed to start telling the truth.

He took a breath, when he made sure the other fragments of music were too low to be too close to them. He started to speak, before the boy in front of him resumed his way out. “Baekhyun,” he called, and when he turned around, Chanyeol saw his uncovered eye search his, studying, like he already knew there was something important he wanted to say. Perhaps he knew - there was power in sound, after all, in the inflection and cadence of every word, every musical note. Things unspoken came to the surface not in what you said, but in how you said it. And Baekhyun was an expert in speech, as well as an expert in silence. “I haven’t told you before, but ever since the mirror broke at the Magitec Research Center - since Haze was hurt and I got part of his power, or whatever that was, I have been hearing music. It happened before, sometimes, I’ve always heard a background sound, but now it’s different. Stronger. Individual.”

A short wave of panic rose up as soon as he finished. He had never said that aloud, not as an adult, not to his friends, not to _anyone._ His mother had known, but she had been mad, and she had screamed and forbid and covered all the mirrors and windows. He didn’t want to be told, by acquaintances or strangers, that he was her rightful son. He had refused to tell that to his therapist because he didn’t want to be tested. And even if Insomnia had magic entangled in his very core, even if his music had helped him before, he didn’t want Baekhyun, or others like him, to frown and judge.

Cracking mirrors was not normal. Hearing music wasn’t either. Deep down, he knew, no matter which side of the looking glass he stood in, he had always known.

“You’ve always heard a background sound? How come? You mean… constantly? Since you came here?”

“Since I was at the other side. Always. When I was a child too. I’ve lived with it all my life.”

Baekhyun blinked, taking a step towards him. “And it became stronger now?”

“It used to be general before. Something around _me_ , to explain it somehow, like my own original soundtrack. It guided me, it was with me, like something involuntary. But now it— It comes from other people too. And it’s different for every person.”

Baekhyun’s face was soft, neutral, voice no louder than a murmur. “Soul magic,” he said. “So can you hear a melody for Jongdae? For Sehun?” Chanyeol nodded, knowing what was coming before the words came out Baekhyun’s mouth. “Can you something for me?”

Chanyeol nodded again. “I’ve tried to block it, but I can’t always—”

The other boy sighed. He didn’t look angry. He didn’t _sound_ angry either. “So I have music too. How does it sound, then?”

Chanyeol wasn’t sure that Baekhyun wanted an answer. And sound was easy, but words were hard, so he didn’t know how to define. “It’s— It’s hard to read. It’s all around you, but I can’t make it out, not completely.”

Something reminiscent of satisfaction curled Baekhyun’s mouth upwards. It was not his usual smile, but something softer, less bright, and Chanyeol felt like he was part of a secret, something he was seeing about Baekhyun that the rest of the world would never grasp. “It can’t be helped, I suppose, you hearing songs in everyone. But that’s quite a weapon, you know that? The kind of thing you could make a great use of if you just keep it secret” he said, and god saved him, he looked sharp and beautiful and bitter, and Chanyeol turned flustered and sad. “Why have you told me?”

“Why not?” the other boy whispered. “One of us has to trust the other.”

Baekhyun’s lips parted. He observed him for one long second, like he was unsure of whether to huff, to sigh or to burst out laughing. “Do you know something?” he said in the end. “It’s so strange, but you’re nothing like Haze. You’re nothing like him at all.”

“Is that bad?” asked Chanyeol, and Baekhyun shook his head.

“For me? I don’t think that’s bad at all.”

 

* * *

 

**Eight Act - Sanctus**   
_Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.  
Hosanna in excelsis._

 

_Sitting beside Chanyeol in the white room was Baekhyun, still like a doll on his chair, lifeless gaze fixed somewhere in front of him, beyond the point where Haze stood._

_Chanyeol could move. He knew he would be able to, if only he tried, but his body felt heavy, weak, and surrendering to the exhaustion seemed like something much easier than fighting it to stand up. He could hear the faint cheers and laughter of a party somewhere, in a place much better than the big room, and a very powerful part of him wanted to close his eyes and let go, join them and dance and have fun, but a corner of his mind refused. Haze was there, smiling wide, with his long white coat and his silver hair. And he wanted him to sleep. He was the one willing his eyes closed, twisting his exhaustion and turning it into the deadweight on his arms and legs and heart._

_“Can’t I offer you slumber?” he said, his voice like a buzz, a low invitation. “I am you at the other side of the mirror. Won’t you let me in and allow me to protect you?”_

_Protection meant confinement. Confinement meant delirium. Delirium meant forgiving, and forgetting, and being happy in ignorance. He could be enhanced, modified. He could be happy, like the others. Euphoric as the ones who danced under the moon. He wouldn’t be sick. He couldn’t get sick. He would just cease to be as he was, to give way for something better._

_“Allow me control. You don’t want it, after all. Stop running,” said Haze, kneeling in front of him. He was Chanyeol, but only strikingly beautiful. Graceful where he was messy, strong where he hesitated. “It doesn’t matter which one of us keeps the power, in the end we both know it’ll come back to me.”_

_Chanyeol swallowed. He wanted the party. He wanted to sleep. He didn’t want nightmares every time he closed his eyes. “No,” he muttered. “Let me go. Let us go.”_

_He closed his eyes, trying to focus on his body, on the stillness on his fingers and the numbness under his skin. He ordered it to go away, commanding his flesh and blood to move, to fight Haze’s petulant smile, the smug expression in that face that was exactly like his own but was too cruel to be his._

_The tip of his index finger twitched, his hand closed into a fist. His body was spasming, once, twice, and then he fell to his knees. It hadn’t hurt, but every inch of his body was tingling with sensation, his senses in overdrive even if there was nothing in the white room to see, to hear, to touch and taste._

_Only Haze, who had stood up and kept smiling, and the still Baekhyun on his chair._

_“I can give you whatever you want. It is my wish that you’re happy,” Haze told him. “What do you crave? Recognition? A mother’s care?”_

_Chanyeol could almost see her, imprinted on his eyelids. It was either looking at Haze or at_ her _, smiling like she used to do before. He had abandoned her, he had tried to care for her, yes, but then he had run. “No,” he whispered. “Let me go.”_

_“Then what is it? Happiness and music? I can give you that. Join my party and all the guests will cheer for you.”_

_Chanyeol covered his mouth with his fingers. His music wasn’t there and he didn’t want the buzz. “No.”_

_“No? There’s nothing else you’d like? I can give you him.” Haze snapped his fingers, and Chanyeol turned around on the floor just in time to see Baekhyun rise to his feet, standing there, gaze empty like an animated corpse. “I could make him kiss you. Or kiss me, for that matter. This poor thing is just yearning to be loved.”_

_It sounded so wrong in that tone, in that voice - Haze’s voice, so close to his own - and Chanyeol found himself fighting his own body to stand up, holding a gasp when the other boy all but fell into his arms. He struggled to keep Baekhyun still, his skin so warm against his fingers, even through the thin shirt he was wearing. Chanyeol’s touch didn’t burn him. Perhaps because that boy didn’t have the will to hurt him - didn’t have the will to do anything besides looking up at him with parted lips and empty eyes, no messy, beautiful melody around him._

_“Don’t be disgusting,” he said._

_“Are you sure? So lovely when he’s lonely. Demand for it and he’ll comply. He’s asking for it, wouldn’t you indulge him?”_

_Chanyeol shook his head no, even though Baekhyun was pulling from his shirt, fingers cold, even if his own skin had turned into wildfire. He was handsome, he was soft against him, and Chanyeol’s mind was still numb, but his body was starting to awaken._

_The far ends of the white room were blurring._

_“What kind of game are you playing?” Chanyeol asked. Baekhyun was looking up and pulling him down, head tilted, as if he wanted to kiss him. And it had his face, and his hair and his eyes, and he looked so sad and so lifeless, but it wasn’t him._

_Chanyeol pushed him back, and the room around him fell into pieces._

_“I don’t play games,” Haze’s voice said, as everything else faded into white. “I create masterpieces.”_

_\--_

“Chanyeol.”

The boy pressed his eyes shut, so hard that he saw white behind his eyelids. He needed to get up. He needed to fight back. If he didn’t—

“Chanyeol, wake up!”

_Wake up?_

He took a breath, inhaling and exhaling, trying to slow down the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He could feel a warm ray of sunshine on his cheek, the weight of something on the mattress he was lying on.

“Chanyeol!” a voice repeated.

He knew that tone, he remembered it, and he opened his eyes with a gasp. The first thing he saw was Baekhyun’s uncovered left eye, studying him with something between caution and concern - and so close to his own face that Chanyeol almost screamed. His gaze travelled down. Baekhyun was biting his lip. And Chanyeol remembered Haze’s low thrum of a voice, saying things that made no sense, that were just meant to provoke him - _I could make him kiss you._

Chanyeol almost hit his own head with the headboard of his own bed in a lame (and unsuccessful) attempt to get away. It was useless, so he just stared up. “What are you doing?” he asked, heart thumping loudly in his chest. Baekhyun still looked certainly worried, and perhaps a bit mad, the violins that surrounded him fluttering around him like hummingbirds.

That wasn’t a ballad, at least, and _was_ music. The Baekhyun that had begged for a kiss in that fucked-up white room had been held on still by silence. That, and he’d had two working eyes, black and lifeless.

_Not the same boy. Totally not the same._

“You were screaming,” Baekhyun said then, shifting so he was sitting on the bed, very and blatantly careful not to touch him. “I thought you were having a nightmare, so since you weren’t replying I decided to come in. Sorry about that.”

Chanyeol turned his head on the pillow to look around. He had dropped his pants on the floor before going to bed and they were still there. Wonderful. Which meant he didn’t have them on in that same moment. Which was terrible. Horrible. Catastrophic.

There was no way on Earth he wasn’t coming out from under the sheets. He would rather die.

He smiled.

“Nah, don’t worry, it’s fine.”

“Are you really okay or do I have to slap you?”

“Why in the world would you slap me?”

“To help you wake up? I live to serve.”

“You would burn your hand if you did that.”

Baekhyun chuckled, tilting his head to look at him. “True that.”

“I think I’ll be having breakfast today, though. If I don’t take care of myself properly, those dreams will end up killing me one of these days.”

“You have nightmares regularly,” said Baekhyun. It wasn’t a question, and Chanyeol nodded, eyes on the ceiling. Baekhyun was many things, but he never judged, and letting go and speaking made him feel… good. “Is it Haze?”

“I’ve had bad dreams since I was a child. Since the accident with my family happened. And, to be honest? I’ve been clearly seeing Haze in my nightmares since I broke the mirror, but if I think about it I believe that he has been there from the start. The night after my dad and sister’s funeral… I think I saw him in the mirror. A child version of him - of me. I dreamed about that for years, and it turned worse every time.”

“Soul Mages’ powers dwell on human feelings. Powerful ones can twist and control emotion, made you angrier or happier or sad. As one of them you should be immune to that kind of manipulation, but Haze and you are connected in a different way, so perhaps he can affect you in a different way. Even when you both were standing in different worlds.”

 _Let me in,_ Haze had said. He always told him. Chanyeol was about to mention that, too, but a look at Baekhyun’s face made him reconsider. He would eventually say it, but not then, not in that same moment. “He was the voice in my mirror,” he stated instead. “He came to foretell the death of my family and turned my mother crazy. She believed that there were demons everywhere. And I’m taking he’s to blame? If he did something, if he was somehow related to what happened to them… Then there’s no way I can forgive him. I need to ask him. I want him to explain.”

Baekhyun did not reply. He stared down at his own hands, frown creasing his forehead and ash brown hair on his face. “Did you know Haze has no family either?”

Chanyeol hadn’t known, and he didn’t understand why he had to care, but the violin tune in the room was deafening once more, like every time Baekhyun kept his dominion over his face and body but couldn’t control his mind.

_I can make him kiss you. This poor thing is just yearning to be loved._

_What a poor thing._

“You know such a great deal about him, but you never told me. Not exactly,” Chanyeol said, getting up on his elbow to look at Baekhyun in the face, like a man talking to an startled animal. “What were you to Haze?”

You couldn’t directly ask to the prince of lies and still expect him to answer with the truth. But Chanyeol had never known how to be subtle, or how to beat around the bush and still get the final prize. Baekhyun and him had different ways of running away. So he could hope. And look at him in the eye. And believe he wasn’t being a fool.

He thought Baekhyun would trap the song in his head with silence, but in the end he spoke. “To him, I was nothing, but _because_ of him there were many bad things that I did, so I need to help this city in compensation. Is that enough for you?”

“I guess. But what does he want? Why is he doing this? He’s in my dreams, and he’s hurt you, and he’s making this whole city sick! Why would he, ultimately? He’s destroying everything.”

“He doesn’t want to destroy Insomnia,” replied Baekhyun, slowly. “He wants to reshape it. To make it brighter and better and to restore the things he lost.”

Chanyeol blinked once. Twice. “Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of concept does he have when it comes to _making things better?_ Is he this crazy because he hit his head on a wall or— _”_

“It is said here that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. And many times, you can only hold your breath once you’ve tossed it into the air.”

“Well, we can be sure then that Haze got the wrong side. Oh my god, can you tell me why am I unlucky in life to the point of meeting the other me in this universe and discovering that he’s an edgy psychopath? We could have been friends and, I don’t know, meet for coffee once in a while and discuss the general lameness of our romantic lives?”

Baekhyun leaned forward, lips curling up in a smile. Finally. “Did you just call the Exalted of Insomnia _edgy?”_ Chanyeol was certainly surprised that Baekhyun - or Insomnia people, for that matter - were in the same page as him when it came to slang.

“Oh, come on, just look at him! Not to insult his looks when he has my face, but he’s taking coolness to a whole new realm of possibilities. Who dresses from head to toe in white?”

“The same guy who has a kink for megalomaniac speeches. What has he been showing you in your dreams anyway? A close-up view of his face while he explains you how awesome he is?”

What Haze had shown him had been twisted temptation. A success that wasn’t truly him, a motherly love he didn’t deserve. A Baekhyun who had no energy, no life, no will. “He offered things I—” he started before interrupting himself, suddenly flustered. Things he _what?_ Things he would have liked to have? That he found appealing? It was truer than true that Baekhyun was witty and good looking, but that didn’t mean that Haze could assume— “He just offered stuff.”

“Like what? Power, money and women?”

Baekhyun was kidding. Baekhyun hadn’t realized he was close. And the last thing Chanyeol needed was to make a fool out of himself. _Just don’t make it awkward._ “Isn’t that kind of offensive? And besides, I don’t like girls like that.”

 _Oh, fuck._ “Ah, really?”

“Didn’t you have a date, by the way? With a girl from the Magitec Center?” Chanyeol just blurted out, just because a masochistic part of him apparently loved to make everything worse. “I mean, you told me.”

“Yeah, I cancelled that after Haze happened, but what does it have to do with anything? I am okay with boys and with girls and with anything, and I am also fine if you don’t want to share whatever Haze showed you. He’s quite a bastard most of the time, so I get he would go for something private and most likely ugly. Calm down. Creating nightmares is a new form of torture, however.” Baekhyun seemed to consider it for a moment, head tilted and eyes half lidded. “He never did that to me. I wonder if he could.”

Back when he had appeared before them, Haze’s hands had gone for Baekhyun’s neck. At first, Chanyeol had thought that his reflection didn’t consider him enough of a threat, or that he was prioritizing Baekhyun because he thought him stronger or just enjoyed making him suffer, but he could see it now - Haze had different enemies and different ways to attack. People, after all, couldn’t all be broken in the same way.

Chanyeol shivered, despite the sun being up and the city being hot and alive at the other side of his open window. “What time is it?” He couldn’t sleep well those days. Even if he went to bed early, he woke up tired. If Baekhyun didn’t come to wake him up - which he usually didn’t, unless he wanted him to load boxes around or do him some kind of favor - he sometimes ended up rising at noon, and only because the air in his little room became unbearably hot.

When he overslept, the other boy always pretended to judge him. That time, however, he almost jumped from his place on the bed and grinned at him. Mischievously, like a child keeping a secret. “Too late,” he said slowly. “Sehunnie came around an hour ago. You missed delivery.”

Chanyeol’s eyes widened. “Sehun came?” It had been almost a week since they had visited. A week of him helping Baekhyun around and joining in his mad driver deliveries around town while the other boy told him how great of a designer Sehun was, how they would be starting to move as soon as they got the instrument he and Jongdae were going to build.

There came action. There came danger. And he felt a little nauseous about that, but heading forward was certainly better than standing still. That, and he had to admit he was excited about having a new guitar. One that was new, and truly his to play. He felt the pulse drumming in his ears in excitement at the thought of it. He wanted to _see._

“Where is it?” he asked, pushing the covers away to stand up. “In the living room? Are you gonna show me?”

Baekhyun looked at him, eyebrows raised, and Chanyeol suddenly remembered that he— Oh. _Oh._ “Wow, sir, did you forget where your pants were?”

Lamely, the boy pointed at the lump on the floor. “They’re there, actually,” he stated, trying to defend himself as Baekhyun stared, because of course he couldn’t be a demure, not evil person and look away, no. “It’s hot in this city!”

“I know it is! How do you think I sleep? In a whole pajama set and fluffy slippers?” He wasn’t helping. Because, of course Baekhyun didn’t want to help. He was Baekhyun after all, and he got his energy from laughing at life. And apparently at him as well, so much that he fell on the bed face down, fingers clenching the sheets as Chanyeol ran for his life - and for his trousers. Luckily for him, Baekhyun was too busy having the time of his life that he managed to put them on before the other boy had calmed down enough to look up. “You never dress up that fast when we have to go out in the morning.”

“Can you, like, shut up?”

“I can do something better - like show you that package of yours. You coming?”

There was no need to tell Chanyeol twice. Before than Baekhyun was up from his bed, the boy had pushed his door open and walking into the living-room. He didn’t even need to ask where it was, because the first thing he saw was the hard, case on the sofa, its surface matte and black and riveted in silver. It looked like a thing he would carry around - the kind of case, in fact, he would have stared at forlornly at a music store, too cool not to want it, and to expensive to even think of asking how much it was. He doubted he would have been able to afford that, even if he sold one kidney and half his liver.

“How much did you pay for this?” he asked.

“Not that much? I help with the parties because of the contacts, and most times get money instead. It’s not like I have much use for it.”

“You could, I don’t know, save it for your Hazeless future? Open a flower shop or something?”

“Do I look like a florist to you?” Baekhyun sat on the sofa, hands on his lap and pointing at the case with a tilt of his head. “You can thank me by helping me make deliveries on my free time, but meanwhile why don’t you open it?”

Before the last word had given way into silence, Chanyeol’s fingers were already on the silver latches on the side, pulling them open one at a time, taking a shaky intake of breath before pushing the lid up slowly. There was a magical quality about seeing something you wanted for the first time, to turn the image in your mind into something tangible, real. And there it was, cushioned in dark silvery velvet: the round shape of an all-black guitar. The guitar seemed made of the same kind of dark metal that was everywhere in Insomnia, smooth, details in ebony, pieces hammered together in steel. By observing how the city below their apartment worked and lived, Chanyeol wouldn’t have expected them to have anything beyond acoustic, but that guitar looked like a mixture of fantastic and vintage and certainly, _certainly_ electric. It had a volume knob in its lower part, or at least a valve that looked exactly like one, right next to a voltmeter that was set to zero. At the opposite side of the lower body, a round device was ingrained into the surface, a round, soft thing made of cogs and intertwined piece of metal that hummed lowly under Chanyeol’s fingers when he touched, unnatural warm under his skin, like a beating, steel heart.

“That’s a magitec generator,” said Baekhyun, voice soft. “Kind of a rare thing. Jongdae was keeping an extra one for me, in case I needed it, so I told him to let Sehun install it there and to build the rest of the guitar around it. It should power up the whole thing and amplify your power. Let you focus, probably. Why don’t you try?”

Chanyeol took the instrument into his arms, feeling the coldness of the metal under his fingers. He had expected the guitar to be heavy, clumsier in his arms, but it was surprisingly light, the material so smooth that it seemed to adapt to his way of holding it.

“Turn it on,” instructed Baekhyun, and Chanyeol’s fingers were already on the silver button next to the volume valve, pressing it in. The guitar grew warm in his hands, the generator humming lowly before it started to work in silence.

Chanyeol was about to try playing a chord, for the sake of testing, when he saw the guitar _light up._ The whole surface of it had been matte black and silver, but suddenly the joints between the pieces, the valves and the generator were glowing in white. Like a thing out of the Tron franchise. Like one of those mouses and joysticks and keyboards he used to sell to teenagers when he worked at the videogame store. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he whispered. “You got me a gamer guitar?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“These _lights_?”

“Hey, I think they’re cool. Very modern-magitec, Sehun has always been very trendy.” Baekhyun leaned forward and started touching buttons and levers, brow furrowed in concentration but tiny smile on his lips. “But maybe you’ll be able to turn it off, if we find the right button. Perhaps this one?” He pressed something, and the lights on the guitar flickered… only to turn from white to radioactive green. He pressed once more and the glow became fire red. “Oh, look at this, they change! It’s awesome!”

It _was_ awesome, in a sense. Or it would have been, if he had wanted to use his new, flamboyant guitar to stream rhythm games on Twitch. It would have looked cool in a concert as well, had he managed to live long enough for Kyungsoo not to smash it on his face for having terrible taste, but for fighting evil, and meeting the marshall, and wizards, and trying to do so without being captured and locked in? He would have preferred to own something a bit more discreet.

“Do you realize that we just called Haze edgy?”

Baekhyun grinned at him. “What? A hero needs to be cool.”

“Is that possible without me looking like I came out of a special level from Kingdom Hearts?” Obviously, that was a reference that Baekhyun couldn’t get, so he just sighed. “Don’t you think it’s a little too cool for me?”

The other boy scoffed. “Of course not. I love it. You love it.”

And perhaps, despite everything, he did, only a little bit. Maybe not with those lights shining in neon green mode, but perhaps if he could made them the adequate shade of red or grey or blue, he could tolerate them and just enjoy the feel of the humming steel under his fingertips, and the way the strings were almost begging to be plucked. He could almost hear the beginning of a song, chords to match the background melody and the sound of violins.

“Do you want me to play something for you?” he asked. “To see if it works?”

“So you can use your new tool of doom to control my emotions?” Baekhyun asked back. His words had the edge of a joke, laced with laughter, but the words and the undertone of them startled Chanyeol all the same.

“That’s not what I meant,” he defended himself, even if he didn’t have to. “I only wanted—”

“Soul magic is a powerful tool, so you should try - influencing emotions and all. Not with me though. I am one of the few people in town who’s immune. Do that to someone else.”

Chanyeol swallowed, trying to ease the knot in his throat. He removed the guitar strap from his shoulders, fumbling with the buttons to turn the thing off before putting it back into its cage. Smiley Baekhyun made him sad sometimes, but the sharp, bitter traces of him that came to the surface from time to time had him aching in a completely different way. Those pieces of him were suffocating, edges of steel that matched the pangs of his violin song.

_The boy is teaching you right. You should know that we all have a soul melody, a murder melody inside us. Even you, if you wish to stand up and take control._

“I am not that kind of person,” he said, to Baekhyun, and to the treacherous voice that made unwanted thoughts take form in his head. “Why did you need to say something like that?”

He would have liked to raise his voice, but the words came out low, laced with incredulity. “Chanyeol,” Baekhyun called him, softly, and he would have punched him in the face, or kissed him to shut him up, or ran away to the street below, because there was an inherent truth to his tone and Chanyeol didn’t want to know what it was.

“I’ve played many songs with my band,” he interrupted him. “But I’ve never played one for someone else.”

For once, Baekhyun looked _really_ taken aback - the perfect boy in his pressed suit, sitting still on the sofa, back straight, while he fought to keep his composure. “Why would I deserve a song, then?” he asked, and every word was buzzing with a sound he couldn’t hear, and Chanyeol blocked it, struggled to mute it out completely because he didn’t want to decipher what it meant.

“I don’t know why I asked. It was probably a bad idea.” He had been getting along with Baekhyun, and he had just wanted him to smile. He had believed it was okay because they were joking around, and had forgot the reason why the other boy always put distance between them when they sat.

It was frightening to realize that Haze hadn’t offered anything he didn’t crave.

“I— You’re a good kid, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun said, mouth twitching, tone tentative. “You could play something, I guess? To see if it works?”

Chanyeol clicked the latches of his guitar case shut. “Nah, don’t worry about that,” he stated. The remnants of rejection tasted bitter on his tongue. “I’ll give it a try by myself later.”

\--

Baekhyun had bought him breakfast.

It had been a wordless offering of peace, a mandatory stop after Chanyeol had been told that they had somewhere to go that day. Baekhyun had been unusually silent, fingers drumming on the handle of his black and silver cane as they walked down the street, but his face had lit up the moment an open cafe entered in his field of vision.

“Breakfast,” he muttered, obviously to himself, turning then to face Chanyeol. “In the end you didn’t have breakfast.”

“It’s noon. I think I would rather wait for lunchtime.”

The last thing Chanyeol felt like doing was sitting on a cafe table while the man who had just openly suspected him of trying to control his emotions stared at him while he ate cinnamon buns, but Baekhyun had that certain kind of look to him - like a stray cat under a storm, sitting in front of your door and begging you to be let in. And Chanyeol knew he loved cats, but that cats had never loved him back. The most he would get were scratches, a ruined furniture and a whole dose of feline disregard. So he should just tell Baekhyun to keep going, end whatever they needed to do as quickly as they could and then return home to start practicing with his guitar in his tiny, hot room. By himself.

“Come on, I’ll treat you!”

“You always do. You’re the one who owns the money.”

“Then more the reason! You won’t be having to help me with the crates to pay for this one. You should take advantage of my generosity!” He went to obviously pat Chanyeol in the back, but he stopped with a well-concealed flinch as soon as his fingers grazed his body. He grinned over it, nonetheless, in a way that seemed convincing. Chanyeol wondered if he had truly forgotten what happened when they touched. He betted he hadn’t. “I don’t do this every day, young man!”

Chanyeol sighed, surrendering. “Very well.”

As usual, Baekhyun had known no limits, and had almost threatened to buy the whole store. He had basically sulked when Chanyeol had only settled for cinnamon buns - “ _only three?”_ \- and coffee, but barely ten minutes after he had recovered both the smile and the energy he had had back when he had joked about Chanyeol’s previous lack of pants. Even then, the boy didn’t know if it was too easy to indulge him or far too hard.

“So where are we going, then?” Chanyeol finally asked him, when they both were sitting inside of one of the mist-powered trams. He didn’t think they had taken that line before.

“To see an old friend of mine, who now should be serving his country in that one place in town where you surely wouldn’t like to be. That’s also the only place in Insomnia where we can talk to him without it raising much suspicion. Precisely because all the noisy people stay away.” Baekhyun grinned, all innocence. “Have I ever told you about Colonel Suho?”

Baekhyun hadn’t, not directly, but he had mentioned him to a young, scared policeman who had wanted to check their cargo on their way to a party in what seemed like an eternity ago.

“The one who’s family with Mrs. Lee?” Chanyeol was surprised that Baekhyun even knew him in real life. He sounded important. Like high-rank-in-the-army important. “Wait, wait, wait, are you taking us to a military prison or something?”

Baekhyun shook his read in reply. “Nah,” he simply said. “Worse.”

\--

Chanyeol had been in the busy center of Insomnia, and then traveled with Baekhyun to the northern district, where Yixing lived, but as the tram took its final stop close to a paved, empty bridge, he realized that he had never since he came there crossed to the part of town at the other side of the river.

The Veil, Baekhyun had called it when Chanyeol had arrived to the city for the first time. Veil River, broad and unnaturally still, the waters tranquil and soundless as they crossed the bridge on foot, steps resounding on the pavement as they walked, fast and in silence. All of Insomnia was black and white, dotted with the sparks of color of the painted signs here and there, the red and white trams, the shiny automobiles and people’s bright choice in clothes, but once they were half into the bridge all the colors dissolved into grayscale. The water below their feet was the color of ash, a curtain of silvery mist lazily rising from its surface, covering the ground and their feet and the city center behind them in a pale shroud as they moved forward, and Chanyeol wondered if the current would be hot to the touch if he were to go to the bank and dip his fingers in.

He didn’t want to know, he realized, with a shudder, focusing his gaze on the blurry landscape in front of him and quickening his pace.

The other side of the Veil, once he could see it and was standing safe on the other side, looked at first glance the same as the northern district of Insomnia - a calmer place than the busy center, the streets a bit narrower but still broad, the buildings not as tall but still square and high ceilinged, with big windows. There was a difference, however, a tiny, little feeling that prickled his bones, a bugging sensation of dissonance.

The street around them looked like it had been built to be fancy, a comfortable residential district for middle classes, but even if almost no door or windows were barred and the walls stood, thick and tall, something around the buildings looked _bent_ , like that whole side of the city had been caught and frozen in the middle of a sigh. There were people walking around there too, men and women in dark military uniforms and citizens in discreet clothes, and Chanyeol realized then that even Baekhyun, who had a fancy for dark greens and reds and blues, was wearing dark grey. The center of Insomnia city, with its illegal parties and its bustling noise, resounded with the chords of sweet, concealed decadence, but that place felt like the preamble of a ruin. Even the hum of his own music seemed numb.

“Where are we exactly?” he asked, catching up with Baekhyun as the other man steadily walked down the street, silver and black cane in hand.

“East district. The Veil crosses Insomnia from Southwest to Northeast, so the city center and the North and West Districts are in one side, the one you’ve seen, while the South and East Districts are at the other side. This side.”

“And what’s here?” Chanyeol asked again, as they passed in front of a man in grey holding the hand of a child. He was whispering something to him that the boy couldn’t hear. “I mean, why are we here, exactly?”

“What? You don’t like it as a tourist spot?” There was an edge, a dare in Baekhyun’s voice. A truth, perhaps, and a lie. “Mist is magic, and mist comes up from the river and expands through town. It’s not the only source, but it’s a source, so you could guess why this part of the city was popular some years ago, when I came here. The way this city is build, mist tends to accumulate at this side of the Veil, so it became East District for the middle class, and South for the rich, where there’s even more. It was nice if you were one of the few Blessed, and empowering if you were not. But then of course you wouldn’t like to be here if the fog turned into miasma, right?”

Chanyeol became conscious, almost as a second thought, of the fact that there were no warning signs about Euphoria Syndrome there, no colorful reminders for people to beware of the moon and its sickness. “But,” he said, “the mist here is white. Thicker, but still white.”

“Yeah, but most epidemic outbreaks happen around here too, so you know. Sometimes the mist darkens into miasma, and people just close their doors and hide and pray to the stars so they won’t start feeling too happy when they have no reason to. But hey, at least East District is not as bad as South.”

“What’s in South?”

“In the outskirts of it, miasma. At the center of it, our dearest Exalted and pain in the ass.”

Chanyeol stumbled on his own feet. He _had_ to stop on his tracks before falling on his face. _“Haze?”_

“Hey, not so loud! We are on an incognito mission!”

“I thought we were going to see your Suho friend, not Ha— the unmentionable guy.”

“The unmentionable guy, huh?” Baekhyun repeated with a lopsided grin. “He _should_ be unmentionable, in fact. I bet that would hurt his ego. Or make him feel important, now that I think of it, with us going all the way around not to spell his name. I am still not sure if I like the term or not.”

“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol protested. He didn’t know if he felt more like deadpanning, or shaking him by the shoulders or both, but the other boy didn’t seem at all bothered.

“Hey, I told you what it is in South, I never mentioned that we would be going there. And besides, didn’t I tell you before, when the Mr. Huang thing happened. You should not worry about the miasma making you sick - it literally affects almost everyone with the exception of Soul Mages. You’re immune.”

“But you—”

“Invulnerable to Soul Magic. And Euphoria Syndrome originates from it. So may it be in South or in West, we’re both safe. Isn’t it wonderful?”

“You still haven’t told me where we’re going, though.”

“Ah, that. You’ll see, it’s not far. A bit of a gloomy place, however. Or a too-happy place. It depends on how you look at it.”

Baekhyun continued walking on, fingers gripping the handle of his cane and pace finally slowing down enough for Chanyeol to keep up with him and observe his surroundings with enough attention. As they moved down the street and far away from the Veil - southwards, perhaps? - the washed-out quality of that whole part of town became more patent. The air was still hot and humid, the sky blue above their heads, but even if the buildings, roads and sidewalks were very far away from being in ruins, the whole landscape felt like it had been coated in a layer of ashes. Not broken, but empty. Not old, but exhausted - like looking at the world through a grey, cracked shard of glass.

Passersby moved not with the lively leisure of the Insomnia center but faster, seriously, coming out of the shops and walking into the buildings with their shoulders stiff and their gazes fixed somewhere in front of them. The only people who remained for more than five seconds in the same place were the officers in the dark uniforms of the military, who talked among them, or patrolled, or simply watched.

Chanyeol felt his pulse rise when he realized their presence was increasing the more they advanced, but Baekhyun, at his right, seemed as perfectly unbothered as ever. “Does the marshall have an office here or something?” he asked, biting his lip when Baekhyun shook his head. “Who are these people guarding, then? Or what? Is your Colonel that important that he needs a full squadron keeping him safe?” Because if he did, that was certainly scary.

Once more, Baekhyun shook his head no. “They are not keeping watch so people won’t get in,” he said. “What they don’t want is people to go _out.”_

They turned around the corner, then, the street ending in the arch giving way to a small, square plaza. The first thing Chanyeol noticed when they arrived was that there were _people_ there, to the point the space felt crowded - men and women in black and white and grey work clothes, swarming around the open doors of a building.

“Order!” an officer in a dark green uniform was saying, while three more of them watched over the crowd. “Order! Please, line in order!”

People screamed, pushed, tried to get ahead - or behind - in the line by walking out of it, or breaking it, or forcing other people to walk in before them. Some looked clearly relieved, others visibly trembled. It was all a noisy, chaotic mess, an amalgam of voices, noise and background music that hit Chanyeol so hard when he looked at them that his vision blurred for a second.

He breathed in, breathed out. When he managed to focus and force the buzz out of his head, Baekhyun had a hesitant hand stretched towards him and the initial wave of nausea was finally going down his throat. “Are you okay?” the other man asked.

“I guess. I only— The _noise_. The center of Insomnia is packed, but these ones are…”

“Unsettled. Agitated.” Baekhyun’s fingers went back to his cane as he drummed absently on it, faint smile on his lips. “Afraid to be sick.”

Chanyeol gasped. “This is—”

“The bimonthly controls for Euphoria Syndrome in the East District hospital for the sick. No one wants to be summoned, but everyone comes, eventually.”

He noticed the sign while Baekhyun was speaking, the name written both in classic and modern Prosperan above the main entrance of the place. He felt a shiver - the building was gigantic, broad and square and the tallest around, the most recent in a square surrounded by older houses, a mass of black concrete and rows of tiny windows - a spot that looked too little like solace and too much like a prison.

“Are we going in?” he asked. “Do we… have to get in line or something?”

“What? No! Take a look at the doors, will you? If you, as the tall person you are, can see something, that is.”

Chanyeol didn’t dare to walk further into the little square, not when Baekhyun was not moving and the officers in uniform were still watching the crowd, but he tried to focus on the people who were at the top of the line while they entered the hospital. One of the men was giving them directions, making them walk one by one through a big, tall set of double doors. A woman approached and went in, and then one man, and another. It wasn’t until the fourth person to walk in that something happened - something beyond the door lighting up, a loud beat cutting the chatter of the crowd and the chaos of music and noise in Chanyeol’s ears.

“There you got it,” Baekhyun said, almost a bit too merry. “Magitec detectors for Euphoria Syndrome. The latest and more practical invention of this city.”

The person who had made the sound go off tried to resist, and Chanyeol clearly saw her when the crowd parted around the place she stood, like water around oil. She was a young woman, barely more than a girl, with brown hair and an even browner dress, who tried to protest and struggle as two men in uniform came from the inside of the plate to grip her arms and push her further in.

“How—” Chanyeol started.

“They don’t look _that_ sick, at least not in the initial stages of the sickness, and even less by day. Once they Splinter… that’s another thing. They start to release miasma once they do, and they become the most unstable, and _contagious._ That’s why the marshall’s troops always try to catch them before, and thus the purpose of these controls. Every registered citizen gets called in eventually to get tested - a magitec scan, a couple of analysis, a medical check… Everyone approves of it, but they all dread the controls too. You may be sick, you know, and not know it until the magitec scanner starts beeping over your head.”

“What are they going to do with her?”

“Quarantine,” replied Baekhyun, voice soft. The shape of the girl wasn’t visible anymore, swallowed by the crowd and the army and the big, square building. “If you’re wondering, I chose to come today because today is one of the only two times every month when the hospital is a mess. So many people in to get tested, so many people out when they’re done, and the Colonel coming all the way here to supervise and work in his paperwork because, of course, the marshall wouldn’t. General chaos is the best way to approach him without anyone knowing, and with no one recognizing me… or your face. Some high-rank officers can actually tell how Haze looks, you know.”

At least, Chanyeol was glad that Haze had decided not to be narcissistic enough to have his face printed around the whole town or something. “So we can’t just wait in the line and get in because of that?”

“Not exactly.” Baekhyun had been gazing around the square, visible eye half-lidded, as he spoke, and he finally started walking, giving Chanyeol a smile that only affected his mouth. His gaze was leveled, hard, all his posture coiling with a tension the other boy was starting to notice. _Alert now, Park,_ he reminded himself, falling into step beside him and forcing himself to smile too as they approached the crowd. “One, because all these people will be identified and taken to the test rooms as soon as they walk through these doors and we don’t want that. Two, because we don’t want the Euphoria alarm to go off in our faces. And three, because I am carrying weapons on me and I don’t want that magitec detector to find out.”

Chanyeol tried to keep his expression neutral and open. The officers weren’t even looking at them, but they were too close to risk it by screaming over his surprise. “That detector finds out weapons too?” he whispered, furiously, and Baekhyun shrugged.

“I’m not sure. Maybe?”

“Then why are you bringing them? Didn’t we come to talk to a friend of yours?”

“A _contact_. And I’m just being safe and cautious.”

“More like fucking reckless. Is your contact going to stab us too or something? And by the way, what do you mean when you say that you don’t want the Euphoria alarm to go off in your faces? Are you suddenly sick or something? Because you said you were invulnerable and I’m sure I’m—”

Baekhyun made a face. “Euphoria Syndrome is caused by the poison in your evil twin’s magic, and you’re surrounded by a magic shield he made.”

Chanyeol looked down at his hands. “Wait, am I contagious?” he said. They had reached one section of the queue were the crowd wasn’t still in formation, two men screaming somewhere behind him. Baekhyun stopped right there, smiling up at Chanyeol in the most angelic gesture he had ever seen.

“No,” he replied, and Chanyeol got suddenly reminded of how good-looking he was, and how pretty his smile could be even when it wasn’t truly real. “But I bet the magitec detectors wouldn’t know that,” he added, before moving forward and pushing him onto the mass of people behind him.

Chanyeol hadn’t expected that. Baekhyun never touched him, Baekhyun _couldn’t_ touch him, and yet he did, with enough strength to make him practically fall into the shouting men of the crowd. He was trying to regain his balance when he felt his elbow collide with something, and looked to the side just in time to see a reddish male face looking up at him. “What do you think you’re doing, you bastard?”

“I—” Chanyeol started.

“Hey, hey, no, what are _you_ doing?” someone else said, and Chanyeol’s eyes opened round and wide when he saw Baekhyun jumping right in. “Are you trying to move yourself behind in the line? Because you go way ahead my mate and me. We saw you, man, and we caught you moving back.”

“What?” the man Chanyeol had unwillingly hit snapped.

“I saw you!” another person chimed in. “You can’t say you weren’t moving back!”

“Are you avoiding the Euphoria controls?” Baekhyun added, raising his voice. His hand found Chanyeol’s sleeve and he tugged, softly, in his direction. “By the stars, it _is_ your duty!”

“What are you all trying to say? What are you accusing me of, eh?”

The man was still so close to Chanyeol, grabbing him by his other arm and looking like he was going to punch at him in the face at any moment. Baekhyun was pressing his lips in a thin line, eyes open in a sort of silent request, and Chanyeol didn’t know what he was supposed to do exactly, but knew he needed to do something. “Are you sick?” he said, the loudest and the angriest that he could. He wasn’t exactly a good liar, but his voice boomed above the crowd anyway. “Is your skin going to crack and start oozing miasma? Because if that’s the case I’m turning you in.”

“You son of a—”

Right then, the stranger really looked like he was going to hit Chanyeol more sooner than not, so the boy did the only thing he could think and punched him in the nose instead. He had always been a good kid, never the kind to get into fights, and so the feeling of his knuckles pressing against cartilage and skin felt foreign… and strangely satisfying. The man let out a loud profanity, more shocked than hurt, and Chanyeol though he would recover and totally, _totally_ break his jaw in retaliation or something when someone else went and hit the stranger in the face.

“We don’t want sick bastards here!” a voice shouted.

“I’ll call the army on you, you son of a bitch,” someone else joined in.

“Blasted be the stars, like you’re gonna skip this!”

Whatever it was they said, the suddenly angry mob seemed more preoccupied in punching and kicking and screaming than in actually calling the troops, but Chanyeol didn’t remain there to see. He knew the officers were close and Baekhyun was already moving, an ash-brown haired shadow scuttling away from the mess he had helped create, so he crouched and pushed and followed.

“No time, come on!” Baekhyun told him as soon as they were out, heading around the corner of the building. A single look back was enough to confirm that one of the soldiers in the green street uniforms was running towards the havoc, voice raising in a warning.

At the wide, empty street at the other side of the building, Baekhyun was already running towards a second man in uniform. He was standing still in front of what looked like a garage door, an entrance for cars or ambulances or bigger shipments other than people. “Sir!” Baekhyun called, voice shaking. “Oh sir, blessed be the stars you’re here! There’s a fight in the Euphoria test queue! A sick man among the others, sir!”

“What?” The shouts and curses were still audible from that place, and the man cursed before telling Chanyeol and a seemingly frightened Baekhyun to take care and return to their duties and rushing to the front door. As soon as he was gone, the façade of fear and concern fell from Baekhyun’s face, a layer shed, as easy as putting off a glove, and he smirked.

“Let’s go,” he instructed, turning towards the big, back door. “Free way in.”

“Just like that?”

“Told you. Walking in is not that much of a problem, as long as we don’t draw attention. Come on.”

He walked fast, but didn’t run, first under the archway the officer had been guarding and then through a set of glass doors, Chanyeol moving behind him, gaze flickering from one place to the next and feelings sharp, trying to heard voices, steps, music. There was an empty storage room at the other side of the doors, wooden boxes and crates labeled and orderly stacked in sturdy-looking wood shelves. Baekhyun made a beeline for the only door at the opposite wall, pressing a finger to his lips when Chanyeol finally reached him.

“Act normal from now on, will you? Like we came to visit or cousin or something.”

“Can the sick receive visits?” Chanyeol asked, and Baekhyun rolled his eyes.

“You _can_ come to see your relatives, from the other side of the glass of their confinement rooms, but they can’t see you. Now, let’s do this.”

He rested his hands on the metal door, pushed it open. He made a gesture for Chanyeol to cross and then followed, peaceful expression already setting on his face when he heard the _beep._ Chanyeol didn’t need to be an expert in Insomnia hospitals to realize, as soon as the first few shrilling notes of noise pierced the silence, that something had gone wrong, and a single look at Baekhyun’s paling face served to confirm that whatever it was, the other boy hadn’t been exactly expecting it. They both looked up at the same time, only to see an arch of black metal looming over the threshold. A magitec detector, for Euphoria sickness and other traces of Haze’s magic, invisible from the other side of the door but beeping now that they had crossed it. Like Baekhyun had predicted, the alarm had gone off. Which didn’t help much when it came to _not drawing attention._

“Oh, blasted stars, _fuck!”_ Baekhyun looked around, biting his lip and grabbing Chanyeol by the sleeve before he started running. They were in a long corridor, the walls painted white, doors opening at both sides. It all was too white and too empty and too aseptic to be a part of the building customers and patients were meant to be in, not to mention _see._ They were alone in there, but it wouldn’t be for long. Chanyeol could hear the noise, getting louder over the ragged sound of his own breath. He couldn’t count how many, but he did know people were coming, towards the sound of the noise. To them.

“What… now?” he asked. He didn’t want to get captured. He didn’t want to be forced to walk under one of those detectors and explain why it started beeping when he was near. He didn’t want to be dragged further inside that place, like the girl at the main doors had been, or even worse, to be recognized by one of the higher-up officers and being locked in, questioned, taken away from Baekhyun and his crazy plans and desperate measures.

They should have tried to run out while they still could. Instead, the other boy was dragging them inside. Chanyeol hoped that he knew where they were going and not just taking blind turns.

“There’s a staff stairway near. If we go up to the second floor, we’ll be fine!”

“Are you sure about that? Because I don’t think anything about this situation is—”

Chanyeol heard the blast of sound over the melody and the drilling pulse in his head before he heard the voice. “Who goes there? You over there, stop!”

Baekhyun looked back over his shoulder. He gripped Chanyeol harder, by the wrist. They turned around yet another corner and there it was, a narrow set of stairs at the end of a row of white doors. Baekhyun cursed again and rushed towards one of them. Closed. He tried another, and pushed Chanyeol in as soon as the handle gave way under his fingers.

“Wha—”

The space at the other side was narrow and packed with brooms, mops and shelves full of products in transparent bottles that came into sight as soon as Baekhyun closed the door behind them and made his own hands glow with his power. A cleaning room, they were stuck in a windowless cleaning room - or judging by the way the other boy was trying to keep himself as far from Chanyeol as he could and was still practically leaning on him, the place seemed more like a cleaning closet. A dead-end. They were in a place they couldn’t run away from, with a man looking for them at their feet.

“I don’t think this is sensible,” he started to murmur.

Baekhyun, once more, took his index finger to his lips. Chanyeol could see that the inner side of it was not glowing, the light in his right hand considerably dimmer than in his left. _He has touched me,_ he realized, breath hitching. _This idiot of a boy, he—_

He stopped, thoughts freezing, when a violent blast of music drummed in his head, not his, not Baekhyun’s, but someone else’s. It was drawing closer, and Chanyeol’s first, natural impulse was to block it out, fight to merge it with all the background noise he had trained himself to ignore. When he bent his head, trying to breathe, he found Baekhyun observing him, gaze inquisitive under his flickering white light.

“He’s coming,” Chanyeol mouthed, and the glow in the other boy’s hands dimmed, turning shapes into silhouettes, vision into feeling. He remained still, both of them did, focusing on the sounds of the real world, in the steps at the other side of the corridor, at the voice still calling them out loud.

 _Let him go up the stairs. Let him look for us somewhere else._ The shrilling beeping sound had stopped, and there still were no raging crowds looking for them. Maybe Baekhyun had been right and no-one would have reason to enter that place unnoticed. Perhaps the officers and staff were looking for a person trying to get out.

Which was a wonderful concept. One that could go right to hell if the only man who had seen them actually trying to get _in_ found them in the broom closet or called for reinforcements.

Chanyeol’s blood turned to crystal shards in his veins when he heard the steps passing the point where they were and then stopping. Then, the sound of a door being shaken, as someone tried to open it in vain. Steps again. Another stop. Baekhyun’s shallow intakes of breath and his own shaky exhale. The metallic whisper of a knife, as a hidden blade unsheathed under his partner’s long sleeve, and the thud of Baekhyun’s own cane against Chanyeol’s own hands as it was passed to him. A weapon. Shrilling violins and blasting drums, turning the music and his own pulse to heavy, white noise.

_Soul Magic is what it is, boy. You should learn to turn your fears into your own advantages. Haven’t you been told before, that you have been born for control? If you’re strong enough for it, may I add. In the case of someone like you, the two only options are dominance and submission. Be a clever boy and choose._

The voice in his head came, as always, uninvited. A whisper, singsonging the words, making them take shape inside of his brain like his mind was the one producing them. And maybe it was. Or maybe it wasn’t. The tone sounded like himself, like Haze’s, but his reflection had always spoken about him as the weaker half - he didn’t want Chanyeol to take over, he expected for him to bend the knee. _Release your potential, little boy. Be a force unleashed, your mother’s son. Noise is in everything: shape it and wield it._

Noise was a headache in Chanyeol’s temples, but he had music - he’d always had music. In himself, in Baekhyun and in the presence at the other side of the door. He wanted to squirm away from the voice in his head, but at the same time he knew he had a weapon in his hands, and that he didn’t want to use it. Drums were all over his head, like a thread connecting the man at the other side of the door and him, and Chanyeol was suddenly conscious of the steps coming near them, too close.

The rolling of percussion was off-beat, a dissonance to the song he wanted to play. And he didn’t have his guitar with his shiny magitec core so he parted his lips and hummed.

It was barely more than a murmur, but it reverberated like an echo in the packed, empty space. Baekhyun gasped, in surprise and in something more primal, darker, and there suddenly was a hand resting on the place where his neck met his shoulder, the cold steel of a hidden blade over the pulse in his throat.

 _Don’t kill me yet,_ Chanyeol thought. _Don’t hate me. Don’t speak._ He heard it clearly now, the drumroll, and the cold fire of anger, of resolution, waves of blue sound. That wouldn’t do it. Chanyeol wanted the song to be calm, wanted the song to be slow and he willed it to do so, untangling it with mind and voice like one would wind yarn into a ball. He met an initial rush of resistance, an unwelcome knot in a skein, but he hummed louder, commanded, and it was coming off, so fast, so simple, so _easy._

A force unleashed.

When he let the music go, he had broken in cold sweat and the small closet smelled like charred flesh. He grabbed Baekhyun’s blade by its edge, pushed it and the boy’s hand away as the steps at the other side of the door hesitated and then took a turn, slow but even. Resolution reshaped into disinterest, like a sword under the heat of the forge.

The man was leaving. A wave of nausea climbed up Chanyeol’s throat.

“You—” Baekhyun started, voice like a taut string that could, at any moment, snap.

Now that the spell was gone, Chanyeol felt so weak that he had to hold himself against the wall behind Baekhyun’s body to avoid crushing him. _Burning him._ “Don’t be so stupid,” he managed to say. “You know you can’t hurt me, no matter how much you want to. Don’t make me hurt you when I don’t. It makes me feel terrible.”

“You just used Soul Magic,” hissed Baekhyun.

“That’s another thing I want to say. Next time, if you don’t mind, don’t rush into a place like this without checking if there’s a damn alarm beforehand, and much less throw me inside of a dead-end rat trap without checking if there’s a way for us to escape. If I have a weapon in my hands and run out of choices, I’ll use it,” he added, pressing the cane back into Baekhyun’s unburnt hand, “but don’t expect me to do it at your convenience and then glare at me when I do. Now, turn the lights on and let me see your left hand.”

After an instant of hesitation, Baekhyun obeyed, crafting light from his right hand and holding the other one high. Chanyeol couldn’t touch, but he observed with a frown, feeling more and more nauseous as he regained his strength.

“Can you move that?” he asked. Baekhyun was now hurt in both hands but he shrugged like he didn’t mind.

“I am tougher than I look,” he said.

Chanyeol scoffed at him. “This is not about being though. It’s all about recklessness.”

Baekhyun’s fingers opened and closed tentatively. If he felt pain, he didn’t let it show. “Does it feel good?” he asked, tone neutral, looking up at him from so close, too close. His own light flickered in his only visible eye, and Chanyeol had never realized how dark it was, a brown so deep that it looked black in the dimness. Such a heavy gaze, for a bender of light. “Soul Magic. Doing what you did. It felt good, right?”

“Do you want to know?”

“Didn’t I ask?”

Chanyeol laughed, low and breathy, smiling when he felt Baekhyun startle under him. “I felt sick,” he admitted. “It was easy, it was natural and I felt sick to the core.”

Baekhyun blinked up at him. His lower lip trembled before he caught himself and pressed it in a pale, thin line.

“I guess I’m not the kind of person who has been made to take this kind of control. Haze may be right about me being the weaker half.”

“No.” Baekhyun finally spoke, breaking his monologue. What was his _no_ about, Chanyeol didn’t exactly know. “I’m sorry.”

The boy shook his head. “I don’t mind much, party leader, but we should move on. I haven’t worked that hard for me to be found in the closet by yet another guy. Where were we going to? Upstairs?”

Finally, Baekhyun smiled again. “Upstairs,” he confirmed. “We have someone to meet before he leaves so, shall we go?”

\--

Baekhyun had shifted again when they reached the third floor, a kid trying to conceal his own shadow, polishing everything that was rough and burning every loose end. It was his own ritual, both enthralling and fascinating and off, like the melody that was always wrapped around him like a shield.

_We are all unlikely warriors, here._

“You broke my blade,” Baekhyun told him as they advanced through a corridor on the second floor. There were no guards there, no security, no rooms for the sick either, only offices and empty waiting rooms. Chanyeol had almost expected to see the Euphoria patients around, either walking around, or being treated, or looking at them from the other side of confinement rooms, but that place looked… administrative, all white walls, low ceilings and small, square windows, and the couple of officers that walked past them barely looked in their direction.

“Did I?”

“You burned the blade. Thank the stars it was not my favorite.” There was no bite in his voice, no trace of fear or distrust or bitterness. His music was growing louder, tho, _forte_ evolving into _fortissimo_ with every step he took. “Still, should I make you pay for it? It was expensive.”

“You were the one who took it off.”

“I know, I know. Just kidding.” He finally stopped in front of a door, knocking on the wood before Chanyeol could even catch his breath. A firm, collected voice replied from the inside almost instantly and Chanyeol could hear the melody entangled with it - a sound like the cracks of an old fashioned gramophone, a melody in loop, classic and steady.

“Who goes? Any information on the incident downstairs?”

Baekhyun laughed softly. “Well, it depends on what you call information.”

A heavy layer of silence covered the air like a blanket, the needle of the gramophone stuck. It felt more menacing than Jongdae’s violent fanfare, than the buzzing noise of the crowd. “Byun Baekhyun?” the voice called, still steady but not without an edge.

The boy plastered a grin onto his face and walked in before anyone could invite him. “Colonel Suho, my old friend! How has life treated you since I’ve last seen you?”

As Chanyeol had already expected, the room at the other side was an office, an elegant space with walls littered with bookcases and a big window with views over the square below. A single person was sitting behind a big, neat mahogany desk - a man in his middle twenties, pale skinned, dark haired and with the breast of his black uniform covered in decorations and medals. He was young, serious and a muscle in his throat twitched when Baekhyun strode in like he owned the place.

“You were the one who caused the disturbances at the ground floor, are you not?” he asked, standing up.

“What would you do if I said I was? I needed to see you, and you’re only alone and accessible here on Euphoria testing day. What did you want me to do?”

“You shouldn’t have come here. You should have asked first, at least.”

“Yeah, I could have gone to your secretary at the marshall’s headquarters and told him, ‘hey, I am Byun Baekhyun and I’m here to talk about potentially problematic stuff.’ I’m sure everyone would have loved it.”

“Problematic?” Colonel Suho repeated. It was then when he looked behind Baekhyun and saw Chanyeol looming in the doorway. His whole expression changed in a second, from practiced calm to pale shock and anger after that. _Fear_. Chanyeol felt the snap of an invisible thread deep in his bones, listened as the violent silence of the Colonel’s melody turned into the shrill of a metal nail over vinyl. Power buzzed in the air, puffs of white mist starting to take shape at the other side of the windows, as if they tried to slip through the cracks. _He’s Blessed. He’s a mage, like Baekhyun._ “You devil.”

“That’s not the Exalted!” Baekhyun cut in, his own hands glowing. “Do you think I would have brought him to you, or that he would come with me? Look at this boy, and do it closely, he’s obviously not Haze.”

The Colonel frowned, finally leaving his desk to walk to Chanyeol. He wasn’t a big man, coming a head shorter than him and a few centimeters than Baekhyun, and even if he looked more soft than threatening, the boy found himself walking back under his gaze, until his body was against the door and his hands splayed over the wood.

“What kind of game are you playing, Byun? What is this?” The Colonel’s voice was still steady, but every inch of threat laid in the melody covering him, the armor to a warrior and the edge to a sword. He observed Chanyeol slowly, with precision, his eyes stopping on his hair, eyes, clothes. “I know the Exalted, and he looks exactly the same as this man.”

“If you ignore Haze’s general psychopathic and narcissist look, then yes, maybe.” Baekhyun’s burned right hand clenched inside of his pants pocket. Chanyeol could see. Chanyeol could also hear him, but Baekhyun continued on, unfazed, strong and smiley. “This person here is, well, not Haze exactly, but his reflection. As in the incarnation of his soul who lives at the other side of the mirror. Or… that used to be there until he came here.”

That time, Colonel Suho’s eyes opened so wide that the expression looked absurdly comical on his handsome, perfect face. “His _reflection_?” he hissed. “I believed we already knew that it was completely unacceptable to have two reflections coexisting on the same side. Did the Exalted bring you?” he asked to Chanyeol, tone hard. “What does he want?”

Baekhyun cleared his throat. “Actually, he wasn’t brought here by our dearest Haze. I called this Chanyeol here.”

“You— To what extent?”

“I’ll save you the long story, but we are using him to weaken Haze by breaking mirrors.”

Sighing, the Colonel headed back to his desk, holding onto the dark wood like he needed it for support. Energy was still swirling around him, an invisible net set alight around his figure, the shape of it a ghost of his own power and anger. “You. You were the one who created that ruckus at the basement of the Magitec Research Center. I should have known - you’re always there when the Exalted is involved.”

Baekhyun turned his back to Chanyeol to look at him. “That _is_ the idea,” he stated, voice slightly shaking. “It’s not like I can put an end to him from a distance!”

“So you brought a clone? The stars know I should call the troops on you both. _”_

With liquid, natural grace, Baekhyun went to sit on the clean surface of Colonel Suho’s desk. He clasped his hands together over his chest, grin on his lips and feet dangling, like a naughty child.

“I’m honest here, you shouldn’t. I thought your whole platoon was all busy conducting the Euphoria tests. They wouldn’t disturb you while you’re working on all this paperwork, and I don’t really want to bother you, not really. I know it’s terribly selfish of me, but I came here today seeking privacy and because I have a favor to ask. Aren’t we friends? So please listen to me.”

The Colonel huffed. “It’s true that I owe you, but you’re not the Baekhyun I was friends with.”

“We still want the same thing, don’t we? And we know it’s something the marshall cannot achieve.”

From his place at the door, Chanyeol watched the discussion between Baekhyun and the Colonel - the charming young man against the stern officer. He saw Suho frown, deep creases forming between his eyebrows, and he already knew he was going to surrender before the man sighed and nodded.

“What do you want?” he asked, and Chanyeol wondered if Baekhyun could feel the darkness too, the way his music sharpened like a weapon. Jongdae’s song, back at the train car where they had gone to see him, had become aggressive as soon as Baekhyun had walked in, and the Colonel’s had changed too, even though it hadn’t been in the same way.

Baekhyun had called both of them friends, even though Jongdae’s tune was chock-full of disdain and the Colonel’s echoed while braided with something that felt too much like disappointment.

“Ah, that’s very simple,” he said, wise, ignorant, proud, head held high. “There’s this mirror being guarded at the marshall’s residence, a memento of the Purge, I’m sure you know the one. That one will help us weaken Haze, incapacitate him, so I need you to guide us in, Chanyeol and I. And I need the marshall now to know.”

Colonel Suho paled. “That is…”

“You know it is important, and you said so: you owe me. So well, what do you say. Can I count on you?”

\--

“Why does that Suho guy owe you exactly?” Chanyeol asked, once they were back at Baekhyun’s apartment and the echoes of the curfew call had long faded beneath the horizon.

That man was a high-rank in the army, a powerful person, and he didn’t look like he agreed with his conditions but he had accepted to carry on with Baekhyun’s plan anyway. And not only that - he had granted them their protection, he had turned one of the Euphoria alarms off and accompanied them outside.

Even now, Chanyeol recalled the mist of the Veil river, the dust and ashes of the East District like a layer over his own skin. He really hoped they didn’t have to go back to that place, or at least not soon. It was looking away from trouble, in more ways than one, but he still preferred the center of Insomnia much better.

It had been a long day, for both of them, and where Chanyeol had decided to collapse on an armchair, Baekhyun was all sprawled on the sofa, still with his grey suit jacket on. He grinned at him, all teeth, but he didn’t move an inch.

“What do you think?” he said, tone deceptively light. “He owes me his life.”

He could have been joking. Chanyeol didn’t believe he was. Sincerity still was tangled in his words, in his voice, more than ever when he wanted to hide it. “You saved him?” he repeated. “From what? Haze?”

“Yeah, you could say so. That was the beginning of our good, old friendship, you know. Now he makes things easier for me - opens… certain doors, let’s say - and I sneak in and do the dirty business. You just saw.”

“Dirty business. That’s what you do.”

“That’s what I do, but not quite. It sounds kind of terrible that way, doesn’t it? Certainly exciting, but more terrible that it is.” Baekhyun raised his eyebrows at him when Chanyeol straightened his back against the back of his armchair, letting out a short burst of laughter. “You’ve seen me, I am a man of contacts! I have pals all over town: engineers, weapon makers, bootleggers, even army officers. It’s true that I spend my days low-key fighting an evil overlord, but I swear it’s funnier than it seems.”

Baekhyun’s hands were resting on his lap, long fingers slightly flexed. Burns stood out like red, angry fire on the skin of his palm, already darkening. That silly boy would stood up and cover them in bandages as soon as he felt rested enough, but they were out in the open then, were anyone could see. Where Colonel Suho had surely noticed them, despite him not saying a word.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and Baekhyun blinked at him, train of thought lost. “Your hands. I’m partly to blame for that, I’m sorry. Can you move them alright?”

“Ah, these? They look worse than they are.” At times, Baekhyun reminded Chanyeol of himself, back in another world and another time, returning home after a long day and walking in silence across a hallway painted with dark crosses. _Your mother, conceal them or they’ll find out. They’ll see, and they’ll blame you, and they’ll take her away._ If Kyungsoo asked, Chanyeol would always reply that things were not that bad, but he still had him, had Sehun too to plan silly escapes and concerts and talk about distant futures where they would move in together. But who was going to laugh with Baekhyun and pat him in the back when the melodies of everyone he called his allies and friends turned hostile when he arrived?

 _He has his own Sehun, at least. And he has me._ “You know, Baekhyun,” he said. “You don’t need to look happy all the time.”

“What?” Baekhyun rose until he was sitting, expression strangely soft, hands still on his lap. Chanyeol hated the sight of the burns in them, even if they weren’t deep. Precisely because he couldn’t help but to cause them, and because he was one of the only two people in that town who couldn’t clean them, bandage them, help them heal. “I know I’m mostly positive but I can get pretty grumpy when I don’t like something. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I look happy all the time.”

Chanyeol nodded. There was nothing he could do about the wounds but he could do that. “That’s great, because you don’t need to? Here there’s only me seeing you, and I don’t care if you’re grumpy or sad. I mean, you can just show me?”

The sofa cracked when Baekhyun leaned forward in his general direction, hand on his cheek and amused smile on his lips. It reached his gaze that time, illuminating black into warm brown. “So, just so I know. You want me to show you how grumpy I can get? How does that work? Do I scowl? Frown? Do I curse at you or did you have something more risqué in mind?”

“What?” It had sounded stupid, the whole way of saying it had been his most dumb idea so far, and Chanyeol hoped Baekhyun wasn’t looking at his ears because he was sure the tips were turning read. “I didn’t mean it like that! What I wanted to say was—”

“I know what you meant,” Baekhyun interrupted him, voice soft. He had a different kind of smile on his face, one that Chanyeol had never seen. And it fitted his melody for once, the storm of violins giving way to something warmer, as clear as the sky when the clouds gave way. There was a shimmer to him, and it left Chanyeol a little breathless. _Who is going to protect Baekhyun from his own monsters?_ “Thank you. Really, Chanyeol, thank you for that.”

 

* * *

 

**Ninth Act - Agnus Dei**   
_Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem,  
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam._

 

_“Cross your heart and hope to die.”_

_Chanyeol was staring down at a child, a little crying thing, soft silvery hair over his eyes. He wore a dark suit, black shoes and a black tie - a whole funeral attire that looked too big and too wrong on him as he kneeled on the floor of the white room. He was sad, Chanyeol could tell - heartbreakingly sad… and angry._

_“You said you’d be back soon,” he muttered. “You promised!”_

_Chanyeol didn’t want the child to be upset. Sadness felt like a sickness, taking over your very core and extending through your blood, your senses, under your skin, so even breathing felt heavy. Chanyeol knew of despair, and about mourning. He had dominion over human emotion, total control. Where others wished and craved for their pain to go, Chanyeol could actually twist it, break it, erase it from existence._

_Humans didn’t need such a useless thing._

_“They promised, but they never came back,” he whispered, and it was his voice saying the words, but also the voice of the child, who was now looking at him with black, empty eyes. “And with your father and his heir gone, now you’re king, chosen, Exalted.”_

_The child rose up, tears crystallizing on his cheeks until they looked like shards of ice and Chanyeol could see him, then. He was wearing the suit his mother had bought him to attend his father and sister’s funeral, but his chest was full of decorations and medals. He was a soldier and a child, Haze and him at the same time. The ghost at the other side of his mirror ten years ago._

_“Death is hard to stop and I failed, but pain? I can just snap my fingers and it fades. Back into peace, back into blissfulness. What’s, anyway, the use for scars?” Chanyeol took a step back, but the child’s fingers dug into his wrist, disgustingly pale and sharp as claws. His skin was cold, hard, glass rather than flesh, and his feral smile was a crack on his face. “Wouldn’t you love it, if you had the chance? To have all of your suffering taken away?”_

_Chanyeol swallowed. His voice was his once more, even if his body wasn’t responding. “You can’t do that. It’s impossible.” He had expected the child to be angry, to claw at him and to attack, to force him submit, but the creature that bore his face only chuckled._

_“There’s only three people in this city for whom it cannot be done. For two of us, it’s a matter of birthright, a blessing and a doom both. For the third one, it’s about punishment and choice.”_

_“Stop all this, will you? What do you want?” Chanyeol asked._

_“To know which option you’ll choose.” The child looked at him, eye to eye, and Chanyeol could see the crystallization climbing up his face, turning blood to ice and skin to glass until his irises turned into black mirrors. Only his mouth remained alive, moving slowly, like it was already starting to freeze. “To freely submit or to fight for your strings? Will you struggle for control or will you stand by me? I could give it all to you, whatever it is you want, if you just let me in. We could be partners in crime.”_

_Chanyeol shook his head, trying to step back. It was impossible to move - the child’s grip was iron on his wrist, fingernails sharpened into crystal shards and sinking deep in his skin. They did not draw blood. His flesh was already freezing, turning to ice around the wounds and extending slowly up. He did not want that. The impulse to run, to flee, was so strong. “Leave me,” he whispered, white puffs coming out from his lips as he begged._

_“I can’t. You must submit. You have to let me in. You can’t leave me alone. You and I, we can reshape the world but we’ll be by ourselves at the top once the fight is over. That’s why you must pledge. Open your mind and let me have you. You seek the control, deep down, the same way you crave the lack of it, and I am the only one who can give you both. Your mind is made to be fractured and then created anew. So promise me. Swear and I’ll be good to you.”_

Let your demons take over. You are your mother’s son. _Chanyeol shook his head. “No.”_

_The child’s grotesque caricature of a smile grew so wide the seams cracked. “No? Oh, maybe not now, but you will submit,” he said, voice like a nail on stone, ice already reaching Chanyeol’s chest. Cross his heart and hope to die. “My power is not yours to handle. You’re not strong enough to ride the wave.”_

_\--_

“Chanyeol,” someone called. “Chanyeol, are you okay?”

The boy blinked, gaze focusing on Baekhyun, who sat in front of him in the uncomfortable backside of the truck. He looked like a different person, that day, all traces of boyishness concealed under the sturdy dark green cloth of the military uniform he was wearing. If any of the other officers surrounding them thought that having his left eye covered by a patch was a strange thing, they didn’t let it show - they didn’t even look at them when he spoke.

“I’m okay. I had a bit of trouble sleeping last night, that’s all.”

Baekhyun observed him in silence for a moment, but he said nothing, and remained quiet the rest of the trip, as the truck advanced in silence across the streets of Insomnia.

Colonel Suho had come to them three days before, with two of the dark green uniforms of middle rank officers and a stack of documents for them to keep. “Night shift for Sunday, at the marshall’s residence,” he had told them. “This is the identification you’ll need, as well as the routes for the patrols you’ll be taking. I’ve assigned you to Captain Kim. He’s not informed of your true purpose in his platoon, so be discreet once you set out for the mirror. It’s in the marshall’s personal study, in the third floor. Get the key, enter the room and do whatever you must. Once I’ve let you in, Byun Baekhyun, my debt to you is over.”

He wasn’t making it easy for them, that Suho guy, but at least that was better than nothing. They had the leave to join the group of young soldiers assigned to the marshall’s residence that night, and they had blended right in once they handed their documents and sat among the others at the back of the truck. Chanyeol felt stranger than ever, locked in a tiny space with ten young men and women, melodies blending together and pulsing like electricity through his veins. _You have to control it, Park. You’re here to be useful. And if all goes well, you’ll leave the place stronger. You’ll get Haze’s power in you, so you need to be brave and endure._

Baekhyun had told him that the marshall lived in the West District, away from the lively center of town, the decadence of the north and the miasma outbursts in the east and south. _It’s a zone for rich people now,_ he had explained. _And for the higher-ups of the army. The big fish._ They had been there a couple of times, when they moved around for delivery, but they had never travelled that deep, that far, beyond the point where skyscrapers and busy streets gave way to the square buildings of the military quarter and the manors of the lucky ones have chosen to build their homes at the West instead of in the South District, and those rich enough to afford one after the Purge.

He would have liked to see the streets outside, to breath the evening air, and felt an itch in his fingers once he felt the pickup slow and come to a half, hushed voices coming from the driver’s seat. There was an exclamation, and the creak of metal gates, and Chanyeol felt an excruciating need to stand up, to walk out of their vehicle and finally leave the other soldiers behind as soon as the pickup crossed them and came to a stop.

He wanted to go back home. He wanted to act. He yearned for the mission to start, only so it could be over. He stared at Baekhyun, in front of him.

“You look blue,” the other boy mouthed, grinning at him. Chanyeol would have paid to know how in the world could Baekhyun be so calm when he was in a costume and about to sneak into the residence of the ruler of the town.

“First day of service at the marshall’s residence?” the soldier next to him asked, patting him in the shoulder. He looked barely older than he was but already had a scar on his cheek and the look of a veteran, and he was the kind of guy who seemed _nice_ , but Chanyeol didn’t know very well what to do.

“Ah, well, yeah,” he said, because Baekhyun could have come to his rescue but he wasn’t speaking. “I recently got relocated. For good behavior.”

“Well, like all of us, boy! Not the good behavior part, but you get me. I used to patrol in North District. Not many sickness outbreaks there, blessed be the stars. Where did you use to serve?”

That time, Baekhyun had parted his lips to speak, but Chanyeol was - kind of unwillingly - faster. “Uh, East District Hospital.”

“The one for the sick?” _Please, tell me I’ve not screwed it all up._ The man was frowning, and a couple more heads had risen to look at him, but even if he tried Chanyeol didn’t find any anomalies in the music. “Wow, that’s _is_ an inconvenient location. I would be a good boy to, to get myself an upgrade out of that madhouse.”

“Oh, we were personally recommended,” Baekhyun added with a friendly grin, and Chanyeol sighed when the public’s attention shifted to him. “And I bet we both are going to like this place much, _much_ better. All hail to the most peaceful district in all of Insomnia.”

The man at Chanyeol’s side was already looking at Baekhyun like he was his lovely little brother, but he didn’t have time to add any further comment before the canvas at the back of the truck opened to reveal the silhouette of a man in the black military uniform of officials. “I see you lot already getting comfortable,” he said. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but you have no time for that. The curfew will be in half an hour, and I want you all in your post by the time the alarms ring. Understood?”

A general exclamation of ‘yes, sir!’ resounded through the back of the truck before Chanyeol could realize he was also supposed to repeat it, but before he could even care about any of the other men and women having noticed, he found himself getting up and out, descending from the vehicle into the court before a three storied mansion.

He had expected the ruler of the city to live either in a high-security fortress or in a luxurious palace, but that building seemed… stoic, simple. It looked like it had been the house of a noble once, but the walls were sturdy black stone, straight lines without a trace of shimmering glass or decoration. When he looked back, beyond the closed metal gated, it didn’t took much for Chanyeol to realize that all the mansions and buildings around them looked bigger and fancier and flashier, in the same display of grandeur that the whole Insomnia relished in. The marshall’s residence looked dull in comparison, the odd one out.

“Form in a line, gentlemen!” the man who had instructed them to go out of the car said, and the boy suddenly remembered that he was supposed to play a part and scrambled into position. Thank goodness, the guy didn’t look _that_ scary - he was in full black, with his back straight and his hands clasped behind his back as he examined them, but his expression looked more curious than inquisitive. As much as he didn’t want to draw attention to himself, Chanyeol still was the tallest man in line, so it was barely a surprise when the official gave him a once-over. “Nervous, soldier?” he asked, but there was a shadow of a smile in his voice, and Chanyeol found out his own reply was coming out steady.

“Yes, sir! I got just promoted, sir!”

“Very well. I’m counting on you.” The man continued moving forward, but came to a stop again in front of Baekhyun, who was standing next to him, posture so absolutely perfect that he looked like he had been born for the army. “What happened to your left eye?”

“Training accident,” the boy replied without batting an eyelash. “Back at the northern Prosperity provinces, sir.”

“Isn’t your sight compromised? Are you in the state to serve?”

“I’ve been serving the army all my life, even with my limitations, sir, and with all due respect, I’ve been recommended for this role by my superiors. They deem me capable, and I have always proven that I am.”

“So you wear your war scars with pride. Very well.” The official finally left Baekhyun behind, checking every soldier down until the end of the line. He walked back to the center after that, eyes going from one face to the next and lips finally breaking into a confident smile. “So soldiers, let me introduce myself. I am Captain Kim Minseok of the marshall’s army, and I’ll be in charge of you while you serve at the manor. You are the after-curfew guard, which means your job will be both keeping the marshall’s residence safe and acting upon any Euphoria outbreaks that may happen in town. Our priorities are keeping our leader safe and assisting the platoons in the different districts under her command, shall the situation call for it. Is this understood?”

Another general exclamation of ‘yes, sir’ resonated through the courtyard. That time, Chanyeol had been ready to join in time, and he felt slightly proud of himself.

Captain Kim guided them inside the mansion after that, walking them in through a side door and then through a narrow staircase into a semibasement. That was the first time since he had lived in the Insomnian summer that he stepped into a room that was relatively cool, and he thanked the universe for that, because the fabric of his uniform was so thick that he was suffocating in it. The room Captain Kim led them into turned out to be some spartan-looking barracks, with rows of sturdy bunks and metal closets.

“You’ll be allowed to rest here once your shift ends,” he instructed. “Each one of you can claim a bed. We also have a common room for you to spend your breaks in. Let me show you now. As you can see, all of our quarters are located in the basement, so be sure to return here when you’re not on duty.”

Baekhyun slipped next to Chanyeol before they left the room. “Be sure to claim the bunk on the far left side,” he whispered. “It’s the first thing you should do when we come back from the tour. Contact’s orders. You know why so don’t forget, okay?”

Captain Kim was efficient and fast, showing them one room and then the rest, from the kitchens and the control room in the basement to the series of meeting rooms, halls and offices in the ground and first floors. It was true that the mansion had been the simplest one on the street, but Chanyeol had expected it to look more luxurious on the inside, a palace hidden behind thick, black walls, but he had been mistaken. Simplicity was key inside of that place, only the necessary furniture in each room to make them not look too bare, and straight lines over the usual intricate decoration. Even the windows were made of regular tinted glass instead of the elegant, shimmering material in every skyscraper in the center.

_A practical woman, is she?_

The curfew rang through the walls when they were heading back to the barracks, low and piercing like a claw to the heart. Captain Kim grimaced, but made no further comment as they made them form in line and divided them into groups of two. As planned, Chanyeol got partnered with a very smiley Baekhyun.

“Ah, that’s great, we use to work together in our previous station,” he said, all delighted. “I am grateful, sir.”

“Don’t be, the patrols were assigned by Colonel Suho himself,” Captain Kim replied. He double checked the list he was carrying. “You two will be in charge of the east wing of the second floor. Do you have any questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well then, let’s go.”

The troops broke formation, and Chanyeol had a couple of minutes to even his breath and claim his bunk before they were heading up the service stairs, Captain Kim leaving them in the empty second floor and finally leaving them alone.

—

“Well, first step complete,” Baekhyun told him, back resting against the wall of one of the empty offices. “We got in no problem. I am impressed with the Colonel. I thought we would be stopped, or detained, or thrown in a cell, or basically all of it together.”

“You?” Chanyeol whispered. _They_ were supposed to be the ones guarding that zone, but he still had a bad feeling, like someone was going to come out of the blue and tell them they were trespassing. Which they technically were, but still. “You were as calm as I’ve always seen you! Between us both, I was the one wishing for earth to open and swallow me. I don’t even know why that Captain didn’t discover me on the spot.”

“You did just fine,” Baekhyun said, shrugging, “and, besides, the uniform looks good on you.”

Chanyeol looked down, blinking. That had awfully sounded like a compliment, and the idea made the tip of his ears burn. The other boy was still waiting for an answer, head slightly tilted and eyes on him, so he tried to come up with a nice reply. Something to impress. “Do you have a uniform kink or something?”

Okay, maybe that hadn’t been a good idea.

“ _What?_ ” repeated Baekhyun with a burst of laughter. He _had_ a nice laughter, always, but Chanyeol didn’t know if him laughing at that statement was a good or a bad situation. He would have taken Baekhyun laughing at his expense anytime, if that at least meant he was happy, but he didn’t know for sure that it was the case. He could have been laughing with the incredulity of a person offended.

“Well, there’s people who _like_ that stuff. Uniforms and leather boots and whips and being called… Sergeant or Commander or things like that,” he tried to justify. Baekhyun’s expression was scarily neutral and Chanyeol realized that he was possibly, _probably_ , making it worse. “I mean, what I wanted to say is that you may not be the kind of person who enjoys that kind of stuff specifically, but people—”

“Who says I don’t?” Baekhyun interrupted him, voice genuinely curious. He had been at the office door, checking the hallway outside, and he closed it and smirked. “What’s wrong. Are you the type who doesn’t enjoy a good whip, Commander?”

Sehun - his version of Sehun - would have called that situation ‘promising.’ Instead of that, Chanyeol was getting the cool sweats. “I— No?” he replied. “I prefer playing guitar better, I guess?”

Baekhyun remained silent. One corner of his mouth twitched. And then, his cool boy image was breaking and he was covering his lips with his hands, back against the wall and laughter just coming out like someone had opened a dam. He was trying so hard to muffle it that the whole situation would have been endearing - hadn’t Chanyeol been so mortified.

“You were kidding,” he muttered. “In the middle of our suicide mission, you decide to go on and joke.”

“I’m sorry,” replied Baekhyun, voice strained, “but you were being so cute.” _Really?_ That was a relief of sorts. “And besides, what are suicide missions without a little fun?”

“At least there’s no one at this side of the house. What did Captain Kim want us to guard at this time of the day? It’s post-curfew hour.”

“Precisely. Why do you think we chose this time to get in? The marshall is probably working or about to go to sleep on the third floor and everything else is empty and quiet, so it’s possible for us to move around in our inconspicuous military uniforms. Do you remember the plan?”

Chanyeol sighed. They had gone over that before boarding on the truck that brought them there, and they had repeated it that morning, and the morning after that. “Yeah. I go down at the barracks and get my guitar, you go to the control room and get the keys and after that we meet here and go up to the marshall’s personal office in her private quarters and take care of that mirror.”

“You got it. Sounds simple enough.”

“You know? For some reason, I doubt it will be.”

“Have a little faith, Park Chanyeol.” Baekhyun winked an eye at him while he opened the door, walking to the hallway beyond. Everything about that mansion seemed empty, silent, their steps echoing as they went, even through carpeted corridors. Thankfully for them, Colonel Suho had provided floor plans, and the design of rooms and hallways of the mansion was simple enough for them to know how to move and where to go without getting lost.

Baekhyun patted him in the back when they reached the back staircase of the west wing. “Remember. Act like you own the place,” he whispered.

They went their own separate ways once they reached the basement floor. Baekhyun was having the hard task there, and Chanyeol watched him go with a hint of worry before heading to their assigned dormitory, which was - thanks god, and the heavens, and to those stars people in Insomnia always prayed to - completely and absolutely empty.

_This shift hasn’t ended after all, we’ve got that in our favor. I should hurry up._

Baekhyun had told him to claim the bunk on the far left on the room, and that was the first thing he had done before starting their patrol. He headed towards it, then, quietly opening the doors of the metal closet behind him. Every soldier was meant to have one, to store their personal belongings shall they had any, and store their uniform jackets and weapons between breaks. Chanyeol hadn’t brought anything with him, but his space was not empty - the hard, black case of his guitar, in fact, literally fell on him when he opened the door, making him muffle an exclamation of pain and surprise when the damned thing hit him on the chin.

“I’m happy to see you too,” he groaned. But he had done that, it had been easy, and all that he needed to do after was going back to the meeting point. _At least, I’ve been the fastest one, haven’t I?_

Strapping the case to his back, he turned around and made his way to the stairs. Laughter and noise were coming from the common room at the other side of the barracks, loud and warm, as he envied them as he went, hurrying as much as he could so he wasn’t seen. The man they had met at the truck and Captain Kim both had the appeal of trustworthy, simple men, the kind you could talk to and get drunk with and end up calling your friends. But no matter whether he wanted that or not, in this world and in the other, he’d always had part-time jobs to attend, a mother to go back to, an evil villain to defeat. That was just life for him - the unluckiest kid in the world, not because of what he had or what he lacked, but because of the things he had always _wanted._

_You already know you’ll yearn for the things that’ll destroy you. For whatever it is you can’t have._

The stairs were just around the corner when he heard voices, an argument coming from somewhere beyond, somewhere close.

“What were you intending to do? What’s _this?”_

“I already told you, Colonel’s orders? Why don’t you call him and ask him if you’re so wary? I’m only doing what I have been ordered to, Captain.” A voice, collected and smooth, surrounded by the a chaotic symphony of violins. Chanyeol would have recognized that cadence anywhere.

Letting out a shaky breath, he ignored the stairs he should have been climbing and rushed down the corridor, with silence under his feet and the drumming pulse of his heart deafening in his ears. He followed the voice, followed the sound, lips already parting to form the first notes of a song.

“The Colonel is, at this moment, in a meeting with the marshall herself. Shall we call them both to verify those orders of yours?”

The control room was a space barely bigger than a windowless closet, the place where a second copy of all the key in the house were kept for security reasons. A low-rank recruit like Baekhyun had no reason to be there, and much less to take anything with him. Not even the prince of lies would get away with murder if he was caught red-handed in such a situation, and Chanyeol was painfully conscious of the fact that if a fight broke in, if the other soldiers came, they would be too deep into enemy territory to carry on with the plan.

He had done it once before, so he was prepared for the song, for the current of power, for the wave of nausea once he realized how easy that all was. Captain Kim’s own song was simple and cheerful, and he was already threading through it to dull its sheen before he reached the control room.

“Call anyone you need to,” Baekhyun was saying, voice wavering just the tiniest bit. Chanyeol saw him when he arrived, a little too still in the middle of the room, with his right hand closed in a fist and the gleam of deadly steel at his wrist and surrounded by rows of neatly classified keys hanging all over the walls. Captain Kim hadn’t seen the hidden blade at Baekhyun’s wrist, too confident but too naive, too nice, and Chanyeol tried to relish in the thought that, in a way, he was saving his live, before proceeding to hum and modify, remixing the song into something calmer, turning the march of victory into a lullaby.

To his merit, Captain Kim’s mind resisted the invasion, the threads of music struggling like they were living things to recover their original place in the score, but he was just a man in the end and he lost the fight, little by little, as Chanyeol held on and forced himself to watch. In less than a minute, he had collapsed on the floor, a small child who wouldn’t wake up, no matter how loud Baekhyun’s voice raised in reproach.

“What have you—” he started, clicking his tongue and lowering his voice. “I was doing okay by myself.”

So easy. Too easy. He didn’t even need to try.

He was starting to feel sick again.

“Yeah, I see how okay you were.” Chanyeol pointed at the hidden blade. “Better Soul Magic than blood.”

Baekhyun swallowed. “Right,” he muttered with a small nod. “Right. Is what you have done permanent?”

“I don’t think so. I’m not sure. I didn’t want it to be, and the music obeys me, so I— I hope it’s not.”

 _Only because you don’t make full use of your capacities,_ the ugly voice in his head protested. _You go around playing like a child when you could create, modify, destroy. That man would be dancing for you like a puppet on strings if you so desired. You could force him to open every door on the way to the mirror you seek. With only_ wanting to _, you could kill him._

Chanyeol let out a gasp, hand on his temple. “I’m not that kind of person,” he whispered. When he looked up, Baekhyun was just in front of him, blade concealed under the sleeve of his uniform once more, and fingers stretched towards him as if to touch him. He wouldn’t, and Chanyeol knew. He always had it in mind.

“I think— I _know_ you’re not,” he said. “One week about you told me that you would use every weapon at your disposal if you had to, and that’s just what you did. I… I realize that I snap sometimes when it comes to Soul Magic but you’re doing what you must, and if you hadn’t come I would have needed to stab the Captain. I won’t deny that I carry the weight of human deaths on my shoulders, but for all my faults I have never directly murdered a man. I didn’t want to start with an innocent person.”

Chanyeol tried to give him his best encouraging smile, but in the end it came out shakier than he intended it to be. “What am I here to, if not to avoid unnecessary killing sprees?”

He had expected Baekhyun to snort, but the boy remained where he was, observing him, his frown a little furrowed. “Chanyeol,” he called. He never said his name that much, but it sounded pretty when he did, a word with meaning and purpose. “You told me before that you were being honest with me because you believed that at least one of us had to trust the other. I just want to say that I may not be the most open and sincere person here but I’m starting to trust you.”

“Despite yourself?” Chanyeol whispered, watching Baekhyun curl his fingers and let his hand fall limp to his side. He could imagine his touch to be warm, the skin just the right kind of rough. He had artist’s hands, that boy. “I don’t know if I’d trust myself much, though. That power of mine… It’s not like it’s hard to control, not exactly, but it has… potential for evil.”

“It’s good to know,” replied Baekhyun, shrugging and grinning at him. “So that way you’re aware you have to fight.”

It was the good smile, the one that lit up all his face, and Chanyeol tried to say something back, but failed miserably. “I— You have the key, right?” he asked instead, nodding when Baekhyun showed it to him, a tiny golden thing gleaming in his open palm. “We should head up now. This guy here is having a very deep fit of sleep, but he’ll probably be missed soon. I really hope he loves taking long breaks, though, or that he works patrolling the attic, because if not we may be fucked.”

Baekhyun snorted. “No time for bonding, huh? Well, then let’s make our Captain comfortable. So whoever finds him thinks he’s just slacking off in the middle of a very long night.” He crouched besides the fallen Captain and dragged him over the closest wall. He looked kind of silly there, in his fancy, black uniform and surrounded by a halo of old keys. What all of those opened, Chanyeol didn’t know, but they looked great for decorative purposes.

They headed out of the control room after that, making a beeline for the stairs and going up to the first floor, then the second. Their way crossed with a couple of soldiers, but Baekhyun was skilled when it comes to saluting and smiling like he had all the right to be out of his post, and Chanyeol allowed himself to be dragged along. The other boy only dropped his perfect, polite expression when they reached the restricted third floor area.

The marshall’s personal quarters. They were going to do it.

“The marshall is apparently at a meeting, so her personal security should be with her, and so does the Colonel,” murmured Baekhyun. “According to the map we were given, there’s a drawing room at the east wing of the house. For our own sake, let’s hope the marshall loves having her personal reunions either there or in another floor and not in the personal office where she keeps our mirror.”

“And what do we do if she doesn’t?”

“Isn’t it obvious? As always, we improvise!”

The top floor of the mansion was as spare as the rest, the furniture simple, the walls devoid of pictures or other forms of decoration. The only signs of luxury were the soft carpets under their feet and the dark red curtains draped over the windows, hiding the sight of the Insomnia City night - the rest were white walls and empty space and yellow electric light.

They found no one on their route to the Marshall’s office, which meant the woman and her guard were probably elsewhere and they had gotten as lucky as they could ever get, but Baekhyun’s fingers were slightly trembling as he fumbled to insert the key in its lock. “You okay?” Chanyeol whispered, moving towards the window on the opposite wall of the hallway. When he drew the curtain back, only a little, he had the intention of taking a peek at the courtyard that should be below, but he was met with a wall of darkened glass. Not the kind of black-made material that was everywhere in the center of Insomnia, but a painted window, blocking all light. _What?_ “You— You got the right key, didn’t you?”

“Please, young man, I don’t make trivial mistakes.” The creak of the door when it opened made Chanyeol turn on his feet, and the first thing he saw was Baekhyun’s fingers clutching the white frame of the door.

The other boy walked in first, feeling the walls around him for a light switch. Chanyeol had just followed him in when he found it and the dim room came into full focus. The door closed with a click behind them as he looked around, drawing his surroundings in.

“Oh, wow.”

The marshall’s office was bigger than any of the rooms he’d seen on the second floor, and felt almost as empty - no royal portraits on the walls, no military decorations or insignias and no trace of sculptures, or flower vases, or books, or even _windows_. The only remarkable things there were the big, oak wood desk, the big, covered shape behind it and the map in the middle of the room.

That map, Chanyeol had never seen anything like it, and he went closer to it in awe, mirror momentarily forgotten.

It was more of a model, he realized, a miniature and three-dimensional version of Insomnia City, but the level of detail was so astounding that it looked much more like a tiny, slumbering room about to wake up, than like the replica of something else. If he followed the trace of the big avenues he knew, he could find the iconic buildings he knew, exactly where they should be: the impressive Magitec Research Center with its windows of black glass and the square shape of the Euphoria Hospital, close to a shimmering glass version of the Veil river, in the East District. He was sure that he would be able to find the building where Baekhyun’s apartment was, or the cafe where they usually went for breakfast, if he just squinted hard enough, tiny replicas made of the same black concrete and crystal that the whole city it reproduced. Even the mist was there - white swirls rising up from the floor, like the concrete was boiling. Only two things were amiss, very obviously out of place on the landscape.

One of them was the big area, back south, fully covered in a smoke that was a darker shade of black than anything else. The other were the red marks, scattered here and there like gashes on skin.

“Euphoria outbreaks,” Baekhyun murmured, fingers just over one of the crimson signs on the otherwise perfect model. Mist curled under his hand, like it wanted to touch him, get into his system, but the boy sighed and drew it off. “I didn’t know there had been so many, recently.”

Those red marks were in the center and in the south, at the North, East and West Districts. Chanyeol heard the alarms sometimes, when he was resting in his room with the window open, but he didn’t know how far - or close - from their home the alerts had rang. Apparently, they had been nearer than he though, although it had been impossible to tell once the city had woken up in the morning.

That was how Insomnia worked, he had learned. Fighting its own nightmares in the darkness, unable to sleep, but oblivious to its own struggles once the next day came.

“Let me get my guitar,” he said, walking away from the model to unfasten his case. The instrument seemed to ring in his fingers, warming to the touch when he turned it on and hanged the strap from his shoulder. He let out a shaky laughter as he approached the mirror. “I feel really stupid right now. Too many lights.”

“And no one here to see you.” Baekhyun was there too, hand on the cloth that covered the mirror. “Ready?”

“Go on.”

Baekhyun had just pulled from the piece of cloth when the silence crashed into a storm of steps at the other side of the door, a bang on it, an exclamation of warning. “Stop that and put those hands where I can see you!” a firm voice ordered at Chanyeol’s back. Baekhyun’s eyes were wide, his usual mask of amusement dissolving into shock, but the boy couldn’t focus his gaze on him. He recognized the voice, and the sound of it robbed the air from his lungs like a death grip closing on his throat. He hadn’t expected to hear that person there, not in that city, not in that world.

“Marshall,” said Baekhyun. Slowly, Chanyeol turned around.

“Mother?”

The woman had the same face that he remembered, even though the expression on her features was stern, even though his mother’s hair always fell, straight and tangled, over her shoulder, and that person had her dark locks tied up in a tight bun. She was so familiar that the mere vision of her sent a painful pang to his chest, and even so, he knew that his mother would have never stood with her back so straight, wouldn’t have looked at him like the woman in front of him did - stern, disdainful, _sane._

“So it was true,” she said. Her voice felt like the crack of a whip, as fast and unyielding as the song floating around her, and Chanyeol found himself grasping for both words and air. “You’ve had the insolence to walk into this house, all the way up to my very own office.”

“Mother, you’re—”

Baekhyun’s outraged exclamation cut him in. “You sold us! Blasted stars, Colonel, this was not part of the plan!”

Only then had Chanyeol the strength to look away from the black-clad figure of his mother to realize that Colonel Suho had entered the room with her, in full uniform and with a whole platoon of soldiers just beyond the doorway. His expression was unreadable, his shoulders squared.

“No matter how well you mean, I couldn’t allow you to proceed with this plan, Baekhyun. You are walking around town with the Exalted’s reflection and with the intention of breaking the mirrors that survived the Purge.”

“To _weaken_ Haze, goddamit! You tried to destroy those mirrors yourselves and you couldn’t! Am I, I don’t know, just doing you a favor by finishing your job?”

The woman with Chanyeol’s mother face sighed. “Seize them,” she instructed, her voice so expressionless that the boy felt the full weight of a knot forming in his throat.

“No, wait!” Baekhyun was screaming, stepping back until he collided with the mirror. He brought the cloth that still was half-covering it with him when he lost his balance, and still had fight enough in him to unsheathe the hidden blades on his sleeves when the storm of soldiers came for him and charge for them with all the desperate force of a cornered beast.

He managed to cut a deep gash in one of his attacker’s thigh and blind another one with a flash of light before a man - a head taller than him and twice as broad - grabbed him by the arm and threw him against the Euphoria model in the middle of the room. It had been a pretty thing, a beautiful reproduction, but it all came crashing under Baekhyun’s weight, stone and glass shattering into bits and shards and he punched and kicked and cursed.

“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol called, trying to run to him, push his attackers off his curled shape. He had thought himself protected of everyone who wanted to hurt him, and so gasped in surprise when a gloved hand closed around his wrist. “What?” _The mirror. The shield._

A closet fist hit him in the face, and Chanyeol vaguely thought that he should had been playing his guitar, tried to protect it with his body as a wall of men and women stepped around the place where Baekhyun struggled and came directly to him. _I am the threat here_ , he wanted to say, as he was grabbed, manhandled, forced to stand. His guitar was still okay, unbroken. His guitar had to be okay. _Why are you doing this? I am not the threat._

_Ah, my dear boy, but you are._

The marshall’s men were also forcing Baekhyun to rise, the boy still fighting like a wounded beast, a bloody cut in his cheek and his lips curled in a snarl as he tossed and turned, unsuccessfully trying to free his hands. Colonel Suho remained where he was, but the marshall strode towards him, expression pure steel.

“You,” she hissed. “I should have had you looked for and executed, from the same moment you escaped. You never learn. It was your influence that brought the sickness, and still here you are now persevering in your mistakes.”

“I’m trying my best to save us all!” Baekhyun snapped back, voice on edge and violins shrilling, enthroning him in raw sound.

“Save us? Like that wretched view of my son’s and yours was intended to save us?”

“No!” Chanyeol fought to look at the boy but to ignore the sound, concentrating instead on the people holding him in place. It had been easy before, he needed it to be easy now, even if he had more than one melody to thread, even if Baekhyun’s own song muted everything else.

_It’s either domination or submission. You choose to subjugate or surrender._

He should have gone for his mother. She was the one who had grabbed Baekhyun by the chin, who was looking at him like he was something small and disgusting after he had worked so hard. Baekhyun was just standing there, clothes a mess, split lip and fire in his eyes, totally and utterly alone, while she, powerful and guarded, did nothing.

Chanyeol should have gone for his mother, but he threaded the melody of the guards holding him instead, shaping, modifying, first one and then another, so easy as if he were a children playing with clay.

“Let him go,” he commanded. The hands that were keeping him in place released him, all at one. “Mother, you’re hurting him and we have no time.”

The marshall turned to look at him and Chanyeol could feel a buzz in the air, a wave of white noise coming from somewhere behind him. The mirror. The mirror was unguarded and his shield was not working.

“So Soul Magic, I see,” she said, leaving a thrashing Baekhyun behind to focus her attention on him. “Aren’t you the splitting image of the son that ran away from me.”

Chanyeol took the blow, standing as straight as he could as the woman neared him. “Listen to me, I need to play my song. The mirror…”

“You both are under arrest,” the marshall interrupted him. She looked around for the discarded cloth that had been covering the looking glass, and leaned to grab it from where it was crumpled at Baekhyun’s feet. “This little game is over.”

“Sure as hell that it is.” Chanyeol directed his attention to the guards holding Baekhyun, one after another, calming their songs, flattening the score to make them harmless. _Release, release, release._ He went to his mother, then, pushing her away from the undulating surface of the mirror, a tall, elegant thing framed in silver and black. His guitar was almost urging him to play it, the first chords of a melody already on his tongue and at the tip of his fingers.

“Come on, release it,” a voice said. “The Soul Melody, the Murder Melody.”

Baekhyun’s voice came booming from behind. “Chanyeol, the mirror! Cover the mirror, he’s here!”

They had no time to act, not even a second. _He had been waiting for it,_ Chanyeol understood, as the mirror opened and a silhouette in white walked in, the liquefied glass giving was to flesh, bone and skin. Haze had his hair pushed back, forehead free of silver locks, and had obviously dressed for the occasion - an actor that had just made his grand entrance to the show.

“Ah, excuse me, everyone. Am I late to the party? If I’m not mistaken, it has been thrown in my honor after all.”

A voice let out something between a gasp and a whimper. “Chanyeol.”

It took the boy a moment to realize that the one to speak had been his mother, and another confusing second to catch-up with the fact that she wasn’t speaking to _him._ “Ah, mama, were you going to cover my mirror? What’s wrong, you didn’t want to see me?”

The marshall, for all her might, looked suddenly small next to him; a woman in an all-black military uniform staring up at a wayward son with the dejected expression of the person who watches the cold stars every night knowing they’re too far for him to reach. She had said Haze’s name like a plea, but he just wasn’t listening.

“Seize him,” she said, the words coming from his mouth so differently than when she had told her guards to apprehend Chanyeol and Baekhyun. “Colonel, call reinforcements and seize him. This is an emergency.”

Haze clicked his tongue. “I don’t think so.”

He rose a hand, gloved in white, and Colonel Suho went down with a scream. He had been simply standing at the threshold one moment ago, and suddenly he was on his knees, covering his ears as a trail of black mist started to trail up from the tips of Haze’s fingers. Other soldiers tried to charge against him as soon as they saw their commander fall, but Haze snorted before sending them down as well with nothing more than a look. The soldiers closest to Chanyeol had been standing behind him, immobile and shocked, when one of them cried out and collapsed, his eyes tightly shut and his body spasming right at Chanyeol’s feet.

Soon, the only ones who remained on their two sets there were Baekhyun, the marshall and Chanyeol instead.

“What have you done to them?” he exclaimed, at the same time Baekhyun took a step forward. He was still standing on the ruined model, face pale and fists clenched at his side.

“Stop the noise! Let them go!”

“And then what, Baekhyunnie? Should I kneel and let you kill me? Allow you to betray me again like the little, ungrateful person you are?”

“What do you want me to say? It’s obviously me you have something against, so let the others leave!”

“Ah, so let me go through the points of that brilliant proposal of yours,” said Haze, clasping his hands at his back. He stepped across one of the whimpering men with fluid grace, making his way without a single glance down. “You suggest that I release the men my mother sent against me because they have done nothing besides following blind orders, and of course won’t do it again if I set them free. You recommend that I release my grip on this mansion and the barrier of noise I raised around this room so I can concentrate on you.”

“Haze,” the boy replied. “Please.”

“Oh, but Baekhyunnie. When will you realize that you aren’t really that important? There’s no need to _concentrate_ only on you, don’t you see?”

Haze raised his hand again, and Colonel Suho rose as the buzz intensified in Chanyeol’s ears. It _was_ the noise, the annoying sound at the back of his head, what was making him move, forcing him to advance like a puppet on strings towards the center of the room and the frowning figure of Baekhyun. The boy’s hands were starting to gleam again, glow pulsing under his skin like a living thing.

“Don’t overuse that power, little boy. That pretty light will consume you.”

“That would still be better than fall to you.”

“Is it so? There used to be a time where you didn’t mind my company that much. But what are good old days for people like us when there’s a full world to reshape?”

Colonel Suho was on the move, advancing towards Baekhyun in irregular, little steps. He was fast, too fast for Chanyeol to try to step in, but he still blindly reached up for the music. Haze’s buzz was floating all around, distracting, but the notes had to be there - _they were -_ and he looked for them and pulled, forced both the song and the buzz to stop.

Haze’s lips twitched. “Oh. So you’re already learning control. How much, however? Are you still afraid or are you willing to let go?”

“Chanyeol!” the marshall screamed, then. She had a gun in her hand and miasma curling around her ankles. Her eyes were open wide, but her pulse didn’t shake when she aimed.

“I took my shield away for the sake of fair play. Come on, just try!” said Haze. She clenched her teeth and did, looking at him in the eye and with her feet firmly planted on the ground. She was a good shooter and he had barely doubted, but Haze looked so terribly bored as one of the soldiers in the ground suddenly sprang to get in the way of the bullet. He fell down again with a thump, the only sounds in the room the marshall’s horrified exclamations and Chanyeol’s little, incredulous gasp.

Soul Magic meant control. Dominion over the emotions, over the body. If you were as strong as Haze, you could control everything.

“You—” Baekhyun’s whispered. Chanyeol’s control had slipped, and Colonel Suho had started to advance towards him, hands stretched in his direction like he had turned into some kind of mindless zombie. He fought to get it back, to look over everything, eyes on his mother, mind on Baekhyun, waves of nausea making him sick.

“Stop all this,” his mother was saying, voice authoritative but slightly shaking. “Your power generates miasma, Chanyeol.”

“And? Are you worried about your health? You can’t catch an illness, mama, when you are already sick.”

Chanyeol’s head snapped up, eyes frantically going from Haze to the marshall. She didn’t react, she barely seemed surprised, and neither did Baekhyun, who only shoot a worried look at Chanyeol because the threads of Colonel Suho’s mind slipped away from his grasp and the man took another step towards him. Haze was staring at him, however, black eyes glinting with amusement.

“What’s wrong? You weren’t expecting that, right? The marshall, ruler of the city, commander of the armies, first Blessed among the Blessed. She who has forbidden any trace of magic and fun, the one who banned alcohol and enchanted items, who set a curfew and filled the walls with warning signs and the streets with her little tiny soldiers. The most powerful woman in town, the one who fights the sickness the hardest, all powerless and secluding herself inside of her mansion because she’s ill. Infected and mother of a monster, what a perfect role model.”

Haze’s buzz was surrounding him, more a taunt than a threat, and Chanyeol clenched his fist, the tip of his nails digging crescents into his palms, and the wave of pain they brought almost pleasant. _Focus, you need to focus. You still have your guitar, Park, you need to get to the mirror. Make the bastard speak._ “You made your own mother sick?” he asked.

“Euphoria Syndrome is not something I control, my boy; it’s just an… ugly but necessary side effect, a little trick that affects both sides of the mirror. It’s interesting to observe, sometimes, how our two worlds are also connected when it comes to the most trivial things.” Colonel Suho was trembling but standing still - caught in a battle of control, music versus noise - ten steps away from Baekhyun, and Haze had his mother. Chanyeol hesitated but in the end took a small step towards her. Haze was the source of that all, and the dangerous one. It was him he needed to defeat. But Haze was staring at him, lopsided smirk on his face. _He’s looking at me, not at Baekhyun. If I get his attention, perhaps he will…_ “Do you know what a fun little magic trick the Blessed at the Prosperan Empire did? They lived in such a terrible, pitiful world, with many magicians and so little magic, and they didn’t want the source of their powers to become extinct, so what did they do? They connected the Soulstream of this world to another one! A sad, little place, hurting with energy but with no Blessed to control it - they took that and linked it to our world through mirrors. Isn’t that witty?”

Chanyeol took another step. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So you, my reflection, understand _me_. The ancient magicians of Insomnia both blessed and cursed us. Mirrors have powerful magical symbolism, for both the good and the bad. They serve as gates, as portals, as catalysts of power, but they also require a balance, and things don’t go well when that balance is broken.”

“Chanyeol,” the Marshall said. “Chanyeol, my men.”

The miasma had been growing, oozing from Haze in waves and prevented by his barrier to reach any further away from the room, and now was a thick cloud of polluted mist that reached all the way up to their knees. Chanyeol couldn’t see the marshall’s men under it, and he knew what happened when living things breathed that air in.

Despite it all, Haze kept smiling. “Don’t worry about these ones, mama. They are all too weak to hold the infection out of sheer magic power as you do. So at least at first, they will have the privilege of being happy, painless. Their reflections at the other side will be the ones to get sad.”

Chanyeol’s heart was hammering beneath his ribs, like a bird trapped in a cage. He felt his control over Colonel Suho slip, the threads of melody dissolving into the buzz one by one. “What did you say?”

“My dear mama here was the patient zero of Euphoria Sickness, before the thing even had a name, when I was like… what? Twelve years old? Just after I failed at making the dead stay alive. When I lost my family, and you couldn’t keep yours, and I decided to wipe pain away and realized I couldn’t, not as I was. I thought you would remember that moment. Hadn’t you been dreaming with that for years?”

Somewhere at his left, Chanyeol could hear the sharp song of steel - Baekhyun’s hidden blades, unsheathed. He focused on that, breathed in. “You can’t be serious.”

“Mama is strong enough to stop the rot at her core from advancing with her own powers, but the fact that she has stayed alive for ten years doesn’t make her less ill. So this is how it is, how the balance works - the sick at this side get Euphoric, her counterparts at _your world_ get all sad. Light and darkness, rise and fall, until it all turns to ashes. So tell me, how has your own mother been?”

Chanyeol saw white. It was what Haze wanted. It was what he craved, but Chanyeol didn’t care. The only thing he could recall then and there was his mother’s collection of charms and amulets, the way she always mumbled about monsters and demons and tried to slip them in under his clothes. He had wanted to run. He had wanted to leave her. “She’s your mother,” he whispered. “She’s my mother, and you…”

“She never understood. You need to realize I have no room for traitors in this new world of mine.”

“My mother, or even me… None of us did nothing to you!”

Baekhyun was calling him but he did not care. He only had eyes for Haze, so smug and so rotten, smiling at him like he was the most immaculate thing that had ever stepped on Earth. Untouchable. He thought himself untouchable, and everything that Chanyeol wanted was to scratch, to kick and to punch, to mark him, make him kneel and force him to stare until he had to open his eyes and see what kind of world he was creating.

He would have killed him, even if that meant they were going to hell together.

“You fucking sick bastard,” he growled. “I’m swear I’m gonna—”

“What?” He had the distant memory of walking across the room, but he didn’t realize where he was until his right hand closed around the lapel of Haze’s infuriatingly white coat. He wanted to taint that disgusting color, he had never needed something so much than to punch his clone in his face until he bled. And still, Haze looked so calm, amused even, like Chanyeol was nothing more than a little animal playing tricks at his feet. “What are you going to do? I’m intrigued, so please do tell me.”

The noise came unexpectedly, like a blow, an electric wave. It fell over him all of a sudden: a high-pitched, disgusting screech that pierced into his very brain, the flashes of pain crushing his skull in a tide of red and white, immobilizing him, taking away thought and balance, and any other trace of sensation that wasn’t _pain, pain, pain_. That noise felt like the cut of a scalpel, cleanly removing any trace of music from his head. _I cannot hear it,_ was the last coherent thought he managed to form before he fell onto his knees. _The melody. He has taken it away._

He saw in black and white. Miasma was cold on his lips where he breathed it in. And he was freezing, and hurting, and he wanted it to stop and was already slipping away. And he would have, until he felt warm fingers on his skin.

Hands shaking him by his shoulders, and a slap on his face. He tried to focus his vision and saw one dark brown eye at the right, a black stain covering the place where the left one should have been. And despite the pain, the agony, he was about to laugh.

He wouldn’t have expected Baekhyun to hit him in the face first thing the moment the shield was gone, but he guessed he liked it all the same.

Or would have.

“Chanyeol. Chanyeol, fight it. Holy fucking shit, hold on!” he shouted, loud enough to be heard over the buzz. It was funny, in a sense, because Baekhyun never swore so much, not like that. Baekhyun had always been the type to swear only on his blasted stars. “Haze,” he hissed, releasing him, and Chanyeol curled his fingers around the guitar he still carried, holding it the hard as he could, for a safety he didn’t feel and a strength he didn’t have. Baekhyun was standing up now, he could feel his warmth slipping away, and he focused on the lights that Sehun had installed in his instrument, in the hum of the magitec generator inserted into the body.

Baekhyun had told him that miasma couldn’t affect him, so he breathed it in. He needed the air and welcomed the coldness of it. Instead of making him numb, it would wake him up. He needed to wake up.

To get up.

Rise.

Punch that entitled bastard in the face.

“Ah, Baekhyunnie,” Haze was saying. Everything around Chanyeol was black and white, and painful red, but he knew Baekhyun was in front of him, between his reflection and him. A warrior and a shield, all in one, and the boy with the deafening, wrecked melody. Chanyeol could not listen to his own song, but even then he could hear that. “So I see you’re changing sides, huh? Protecting the weaker half now, the… how to call it, _tender_ _reflection?_ He fits you, you know. He’s always been a foolish, silly dreamer who thought he would be able to leave his nightmares behind if he ran away fast enough. Sounds familiar to you?”

“Let him be,” Baekhyun replied. His voice was crystal clear over the static, no trace of happiness of it, not sad, just determined. Iron and glass and light, just like Insomnia. “Haze, I swear to god, release him or I’ll just—”

“You’ll what? Kill me? Come on, Baekhyunnie, try - I’ve been expecting you to kill me for months! But wouldn’t be that a shame? As long as our worlds are connected, ending my life will mean that the whimpering child at your feet die as well. No matter if it takes a day, a week or two of them, but he’ll cease to be before autumn comes. And wasn’t that your plan from the start?”

Baekhyun hesitated. Chanyeol tried to reach to him through the black fog. _Attack him. Do it. Strike._ “I will—” His sentence ended up in a gurgle. Haze’s shadow and Baekhyun’s were only one now, the ghost of his reflection’s fingers on Baekhyun’s neck.

“Isn’t it amusing that your genius idea backfired?” Haze was saying. His voice was like glass splintering into pieces, and Baekhyun’s fingers blew with a light so bright that the miasma curled and dissolved around Chanyeol’s fallen shape. _Don’t touch him._ Sehun had given Chanyeol a lamp, back in the metro train, because he hadn’t wanted Baekhyun to use his powers. Haze had said before that Baekhyun’s light would consume him. And the pain was receding, the noise was as loud but he could think. And Chanyeol didn’t know if it was Baekhyun or if it all was in him, but he could flex his fingers. Move. “You brought another boy to this world with the intention of slaughtering him, but you weren’t able to do it, when the hour came. And that, my pretty little thing, is how you gave yourself a weakness and offered a weapon to me. Isn’t that the funniest thing you have heard in months?”

_Release him. Don’t you dare hurt him further. Baekhyun, my mother, me… You’ve done more than enough to screw all of us up._

“Son, stop this,” the marshall whispered. He had been speaking before too, but now Chanyeol could hear.

“Would you kill me now?” Baekhyun replied. “Now that you can’t toy with my mind, will you activate your shield once more and burn me to ashes?”

“Want to test it? Perhaps the time to say goodbye to my joyful memories has come, don’t you think?”

_No._

The shield was coming back. Chanyeol could feel it now, a wave of oily energy coating his oversensitive body, choking him. And he was still clutching his guitar on the floor, with his head on the carpet and his limbs all cold, but he had been bent all along, never broken. Haze’s voice had laughed in his head many times before, telling him that only the strong rode the wave, that his power would serve him if he let go.

And so he ordered. He commanded. He controlled by letting the melody loose.

His fingers shifted to the neck of his guitar, his feet propelled him up. He knew the chords and he played them, a star in the middle of his stage performing the solo of his life.

The noise was strong, but he had been born to shape it. And he tangled the threads, composed the score anew. Baekhyun had freed himself, the collar of his uniform charred black, but he breathed and he was ready for a fight and he was not alone, because every falling soldier was rising up too, unconscious but carried in the puppet strings of sound. Chanyeol could control those men, their wills and their bodies, he could make them grab their weapons and pull the triggers, all at once.

“Ah, so I see my rivals are ready to fight,” Haze commented, gaze traveling from Chanyeol to Baekhyun. “Come on, darling boy, make that magitec generator scream.”

Chanyeol grimaced as his guitar burned in his hands. He didn’t stop playing, not for even for a second. “Don’t call me darling boy, you hear? That’s actually disgusting.”

The soldiers moved all at once, their arms outstretched and their heads cocked down, Chanyeol’s own army of human dolls charging against Haze’s power. Discord versus harmony, music versus noise, a battle fought in the mind rather than in a field.

“I’ll take care of the miasma,” Baekhyun shouted, hands so bright that they seemed ablaze. “You do what you have to do!”

“I know!”

Chanyeol was expecting Haze’s power before the buzz clashed against him, heavy noise trying to breach his melody and his head, but that time he was prepared and he didn’t allow it in. _You’re me, Haze, I know you. There’s no way you’re surprising me two times in a row._ The platoon of soldiers froze mid-step, trapped between the pull of two forces, and Chanyeol felt about to burst. Sparks crackled in his fingers, blue threads of visible sound taking shape and waiting to be used, thrown at Haze’s pale form.

He felt strong, unstoppable, made of titanium and steel. But even then, in the middle of the fight, with the adrenaline singing and his heart keeping the beat like a drum, he knew, with an appealing certainty, that Haze was more powerful.

“Oh, come on, my reflection. Is that the best you have?” the other man asked. “How much left until you collapse, tell me?”

The soldiers were closer to Haze than they were to him. One little pull and he could make them fall on Haze. One little pull and he would hurt him. He smiled. “Not enough for you to be safe,” he replied.

He knew what he had to do, had the chords and the tune memorized by heart. So he pulled at the strings of the men harder, forward, always forward, gathering all his strength we he felt Haze pushing back. He threw his power against his reflection at full force, only for a second. Then he withdrew it. Released. Used the momentum to turn it around and direct it towards the mirror behind him.

He wasn’t even looking at it when he heard the glass splinter and crack.

Baekhyun’s hands flickered off and the marshall fell on her knees as the remains of the miasma curled onto themselves and died and Haze collapsed. Chanyeol was the only one looking at him when his skin started to harden and break, didn’t break the contact as the beams of light left the Exalted’s body and entered him.

And he felt his gut churn, because right then and there, and only for the fraction of a second, he believed he saw Haze’s lips twitching up.

\--

They had to run after that, as soon as Haze’s noise barrier fell. It was still night, but they had to escape anyway, while the marshall’s house was a mess and soldiers hurried up and down the stairs. Baekhyun leaded, Chanyeol followed, his mother didn’t try to stop them. And no one else did, because the rest of the guard were too busy handling the sick.

Not only the ones in the room, who had collapsed to the floor once more after Haze had escaped, but also the ones outside the mansion, infected civilians who laughed and thrashed and screamed in grotesque delight at the other side of the fence, hands reaching through the bars and grins plastered on their faces.

“They have come because of the miasma here,” explained Baekhyun. He had needed to knock out a couple of them with his light so they could exit that place, and had done so with an easy, practiced grace, but Chanyeol was painfully aware of the strain in his breath and of the drops of sweat staining his temples.

“Shouldn’t we hide until sunrise?” he asked as they rushed down the street. Baekhyun looked back at him for the briefest of seconds.

“What? Chanyeol, no. We have no time to lose hiding, and, besides, both you and me are safe from the sickness, so there’s no point either. The marshall’s troops will come for us when they have figured out this whole mess, so we better be off by the time they do.”

“Wait, but she let us go.”

“Because I wasn’t going to give her the luxury of thinking her situation over. She will be sending people to get us, even if it’s only for _questioning_ , and Colonel Suho knows where I live.”

Colonel Suho, the man who had actually went and told his mother. The same who had fell under Haze’s control. “Isn’t he sick anyway?”

“He breathed in miasma, that’s for sure, so maybe. Possibly. Though being sick, Chanyeol, won’t make him silent. Look at how loud the marshall barks.”

He had to admit Baekhyun was right about that, but still, he didn’t reply, or even try to strike conversation during the period of time it took them to reach the city center. Public transport was obviously not operative and they didn’t have a car, so they had to walk through deserted streets while the moon the city signs warned everyone against shone over their heads, a curved silver blade.

When they arrived to Baekhyun’s apartment, the sun was starting to turn red, and Chanyeol wanted nothing more than to lay down for a while in his room and allowing his tired bones to rest, but the other boy didn’t give him a break.

“Change,” he instructed. “And pack whatever you need. We leave in thirty minutes.”

“Wait, where are we going?”

“Underground.”

The funniest thing about Baekhyun was that he always paid an exceptional amount of attention to being well dressed, and even then, when on the run, he was waiting at the door looking like the absolute gentleman when Chanyeol came out of his own room half an hour later. He ushered Chanyeol out, and didn’t even look back as he closed the door of his tiny home.

After that, they were on the run again, across broad avenues and streets that Chanyeol had learned to know, escaping from the hustle that light brought as the city came to life around them.

They entered the abandoned Insomnia Metropolitan through the same entrance they had used when they had come to see Jongdae, and followed the same exact way, Baekhyun’s light shining from his clenched fists. The old metro car was closed and the platform empty, but the boy didn’t seem to care as he sat, body on directly on the concrete floor, back against the train and eyes closed.

“Wait a second,” said Chanyeol. He had packed Sehun’s lamp when he was deciding which things to take, and he turned the thing on, leaving it next to Baekhyun before he went to search for his blanket in his bag. When he turned around to lay it out on the floor, Baekhyun’s light had faded from his hands and the boy was looking at him.

“You’ve come prepared,” he observed, voice soft, tired.

“Well, of course. You told me we were coming underground, and I didn’t know if you owned a secret base for us to rest or something or if we would just have to… improvise.”

“Improvise, yeah, like we always do. I didn’t think about a blanket. Or a lamp.”

“You thought about the place, I thought about the equipment, so we’re even. Now come sit?”

After a long, silent second, Baekhyun nodded and scooted a bit to the right so his back was still against the train but the blanked was under him. He was still sweating, even though the weather wasn’t as hot down there.

“Jongdae will be so mad when he comes in a couple of hours and finds us here, but he’ll let us stay. Sehun will convince him. We’ll need to send him for food.”

Chanyeol hesitated for a second before taking his place at Baekhyun’s side. They were far enough for their shoulders not to touch, but the blanket was a limited size and that meant they were still close enough for Baekhyun to be uncomfortable. He didn’t want the other boy to flinch or to move away, but he never did, the only sign of Baekhyun noticing him the fluttering of his lashes. He looked so tired in the dimness, like he was about to fall sleep, but still he was the first to speak.

“How’s your power?” he asked. “You broke another mirror, you took another part of Haze’s strength so is your… Are you okay?”

“Well. Yeah.” Chanyeol looked down at his own hands, like the telling signs of what he was could be found under his skin and not in the music around him. “I mean, I should be. Right now everything in my head is a little chaotic, so I suppose I’ll know how I am exactly after I’ve rested. I guess I should try to nap but I don’t feel sleepy, even if I _am_ dead tired.”

_I don’t really want to sleep, you know?_

Baekhyun chuckled. “Me neither.”

“Are you fine? You look pale. Is your power…?”

“My power’s fine.”

“But Haze said—”

“Haze says many things. He always has to speak, so don’t listen to him much unless, for some reason, you need to. He’ll play with you and make you lost and confused. He is a pro at that, don’t let him win.”

Chanyeol sighed. “He’s already in my head.”

Baekhyun turned to look at him, frowning. “What do you mean with that? Has he—?”

“He talks to me. Remember my nightmares? It’s him I see there, Haze who shows me things and talks in my head and tells me stuff like I should _let go_ and _let him in._ The voice sounds just like mine, but I’m sure it’s him I’m hearing. And I try not to listen, but today I…” Chanyeol swallowed. He remembered the fallen soldiers, the noise in his head, Haze activating his shield again and going for Baekhyun. Turning to his power for help had been easy, the natural thing to do. Releasing his strength had felt so good. “I let go, just like he wanted. And because he forced me to. He had to know I would go all out when he hurt you.”

Baekhyun’s face softened. “Chanyeol.”

“I just— What if we are doing exactly what Haze wants us to do? What if he doesn’t care if we break the mirrors or not?”

“It’s weakening him, and making you more powerful. Why wouldn’t he care?”

“I don’t know, so I can let him in?” Chanyeol let out a shaky laughter. He thanked the universe for the darkness, so Baekhyun wouldn’t clearly see him, even if he tried. “That’s what he’s been saying. His voice became stronger when I broke that first mirror, so I…”

“Do you want us to stop?”

Chanyeol blinked, stammering. “What? No! I don’t know. What else can we do? There is no other method that we know of, and things can’t really get much worse than they are, so why would I want to stop?”

“He’s hurting you.”

There was something very soft in Baekhyun’s voice, and for once Chanyeol’s powers felt too weak and his melodies were too far away. He only had the words, but those words themselves were raw and he felt so vulnerable, having only them over the vast silence beyond.

His pulse drummed on his ears. His hands felt clammy where they rested on the blanket. He swallowed. “I thought you were the one who wanted to bring Haze down no matter the cost,” he heard himself saying. His voice sounded so raw, like it didn’t belong to him anymore.

“I do,” whispered Baekhyun. “Of course I do. But you were living your life at the other side of the mirror and I just felt entitled to bring you here and try to assassinate you. I robbed you of your life and threw this mess at your face because for some weird, stupid reason I thought Haze fucking up my life gave me the right to be an asshole. And despite me continuing to be an asshole and doing idiotic stuff like, I don’t know, accusing you of trying to manipulate me when you only wanted to play a song for me, you have only been kind and agreed to go on with all this thing, and I—”

“Hey, hey, wait a second. I have my reasons too, Baekhyun, when it comes to fighting,” Chanyeol interrupted him. He would have patted his shoulder to calm him, he would have tried to squeeze his hand, but he was acutely conscious of the fact that he couldn’t, so he tried to smile himself, and failed “You talk about my life back in my world like it was a perfect thing and, you know what? It wasn’t. I worked three or four part-time jobs while I studied so I could pay for food, and books, and medicine. The dream of my life was to play in a band but music was forbidden for me ever since my father and sister died and a monster appeared in my mirror. Ever since I remember, I struggled between hating my mother because she was crazy and blaming myself because I thought I’d made her mad. She needed help, _I_ needed help, but I didn’t want to seek it because I didn’t want to be told that I was _like her_. No one else could hear a song in their head. No one else could open windows by singing to mirrors. And I hated her, and I made plans to move in with Sehun, but at the same time I knew I wouldn’t leave her behind, so I let her draw crosses in the hallways and paint the windows black all the same. What a wonderful son I am.”

“Chanyeol.”

“You know, when I came here? I told you I wanted to go back, I _tried_ to go back because I had to, but at the same time I felt relieved that I wasn’t in Seoul anymore. That I came home to you and not to her. But of course she had to be here, and I had to run into her. And then, what do I find out? That it wasn’t me but Haze who made his mother sick. That because these fucking worlds are connected, one reflection started suffering from Euphoria Syndrome and the other one felt sad. And _that,_ that was the thing that screwed my whole life, not you, and Haze knew and laughed at my face. That’s why I want to fight him. That’s why this is my problem as much as it’s yours. It’s not only about going home, it never was. It is about _me._ ”

Baekhyun was leaning forward, right eye wide open, bottom lip trembling. “I am sorry. In Haze’s name. I really, really, am.”

“Why would you be apologizing for him?”

Despite the lack of light, Chanyeol could see it - Baekhyun’s whole face shifting, from shaken to neutral to resolute, from determination to fear to an unreadable sort of calm. He was looking for the lie, shaping and considering it. Chanyeol knew he had it, like he always did, and he watched it go up to his lips and then die there on the verge of being spoken, like a breath not exhaled, a kiss not given.

“Before,” he said. “Before. When we were about to go into the marshall’s house, that Captain Kim told me I wore my scars with pride. He meant well, but he doesn’t know me. I wear my scars because I have to, but pride is the last thing I feel.” Chanyeol parted his lips to speak, but Baekhyun shook his head with a sad smile. “Haze… I used to think he and I were kindred spirits. Some years ago, my life wasn’t going as expected and I felt so sad, so angry. Haze offered a new chance to me. You know that world you see by day? The one you see before the night falls, full of color and laughter and happiness: that was the world Haze wanted to create.”

“And he used Soul Magic to erase pain from people. He thought it was an awesome idea, but instead of making people happy he started to make everyone sick.”

Baekhyun blinked, mouth agape. “Why do you—”

“I’ve been dreaming about him, and he’s not as mysterious as he thinks he is.” _And neither are you. Not at this point._

“I see.” Baekhyun visibly swallowed. “Well, at first I didn’t know what I was doing, so I went along with his plan, and everything was fine until I realized what was going on, and how twisted Haze’s version of life was. But until then I supported him, and I did terrible things up to the moment when, well, terrible things were done to me in return. That’s karma for you, I suppose. An eye for an eye. Literally speaking.”

“I am glad you take your situation with humor,” Chanyeol mentioned, feeling slightly sick, and Baekhyun laughed. Even then, and in a situation like that, he had the prettiest smile in the world - perhaps because he wasn’t faking it.

“What else do you want me to do?” he asked back. His smile died with his words after that, just before he turned to his side to face him completely. Chanyeol looked at him, casted in faint light and shadows, but even if Baekhyun was staring forward, he doubted he was actually seeing him. “Chanyeol. Chanyeol, I told you before today that even if I trusted you there were some secrets that I was keeping, but I think that it’s just fair for you to know something about me.”

He said that, but he didn’t speak, and Chanyeol remained where he was, with sweaty hands and aching muscles and a growing pressure in his chest. He had wanted Baekhyun to talk to him, but now that the boy was struggling with the words he felt the bite of an invisible noose around his neck. So he breathed in and breathed out, and let out a laughter so forced that he had to do his best not to cringe. “If you’re going to say that my reflection and you were lovers, then don’t look so scared. I already know.”

Baekhyun’s lips formed a perfect ‘o’.

“I told you before, Byun. Haze loves to play the dramatic villain card, but as hard as he tries that doesn’t make him _enigmatic._ It’s really easy to tell from the way he talks to you. _You’re protecting the weaker half now, Baekhyunnie, the tender reflection_. Has he ever realized he sounds like a dick?”

Baekhyun’s eyes searched his face. “Do you hate me because of this?”

“For what? Having questionable test in men? That makes two of us, of course I wouldn’t hate you.”

“Are you angry, then?”

“I’m not.”

“You are angry.”

“I have no right to be,” said Chanyeol. And he meant it, he _wanted_ to mean it, but he felt upset and scared and heartbroken, and wanted to punch himself in the face for it. What if Haze and Baekhyun had been together? His reflection was disgusting, but Baekhyun already knew, and he was clearly over it, which meant Chanyeol shouldn’t even _care_. That Baekhyun wasn’t even the one in his side of the mirror, which meant that perhaps there would be another Baekhyun in the other world, with his hair a different color and a smile that was sincere all the time. The thing was that Chanyeol was already fucked up, because he was painfully aware of the fact that he didn’t want an option B. He couldn’t help but wonder when in the world had he become his own worst enemy.

“If that’s what you’re thinking, please don’t ever believe that I’m anything less than sure about wanting to stop Haze. You know that I—”

“Obviously, I am aware! You’re practically killing yourself for this mission!”

“Then, what’s wrong?”

“That I’m not Haze!” He almost screamed it, and everything Baekhyun did was to stare at him, wide-eyed and pale. “I am not a nice version of him. I am not his good side. I am not an alternate possibility or his lawful good replacement. I am me! I have always been me and always will!”

Chanyeol was a hideous person, and Baekhyun was looking at him like he had slapped him in the face. He hoped he hadn’t made him cry, because it was bad enough that one of them did and he felt like starting. Imminently.

“I told you once that it surprised me, how different Haze and you were. Not opposites, not complementaries, just… different,” Baekhyun whispered. Chanyeol had his back against the old metro car again, wasn’t looking at him but he could hear. “It’s literally everything, not just the personality, or the way you act: it’s your posture, the general tone of your voice, your gestures. Haze has never smiled like you do.”

“Our powers are opposite, though.”

“Music and noise Soul Magic. But that’s like the only thing.” The metal of the train car creaked a bit when Baekhyun leaned against it as well. “It’s so terrible to say it like this, but I would have actually killed you if you were anything like Haze.”

“Then, I’m thankful I’m not.” Chanyeol closed his eyes. The sudden rage was fading now, leaving him exhausted. “I’m sorry.”

Baekhyun hummed in approval. Above them, the city had come to life, but that place remained quiet and hidden and safe, their own tiny haven. Chanyeol was starting to feel the heaviness of sleep, and was about to drift off when he felt fingers on his own. _You shouldn’t be touching me. It’ll burn so bad and I don’t want to burn you._

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun called, so low, so intimate, so lovely. “You told me weeks ago that you could hear a song in me, around me, and that you couldn’t read it well.”

“Aha.”

“Besides that, how is it? You never told me.”

“You never asked, but it’s… violin music? Mostly? And it’s so monotonous sometimes, like one of those ballads that play on the radio. The rest of the time it’s suffocating, I guess. Like a cry.”

“A cry, I see. Is it loud?”

Chanyeol chuckled. “I’ve always thought that the melody didn’t fit you, but the volume is what one would expect of Byun Baekhyun: loud as hell. Deafening.”

The fingers were gone, probably just his imagination, but Baekhyun was still at his side, and Chanyeol could hear the smile in his voice. “I am glad then. When you told me you could hear melodies in people, I thought there would be a song for everyone but for me.”

“And why is that so?”

Baekhyun took a moment to reply, and he did it so, so softly. “Because silence was the only thing I could hear, you know? Every time I tried to reach in.”


	3. Murder Melody (3/3)

**Tenth Act - Communion**  
 _Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine;_  
et lux perpetua luceat eis;  
cum Sanctis tuis in æternum,  
quia pius es.

 

_Haze was at Chanyeol’s side when he showed him Baekhyun, not as he was but as he had been._

_He had darker hair then, and two uncovered eyes instead of one, but he still dressed neatly, and he still smiled wide, with the kind of big grin that lightened up his whole face and made the world feel better. Haze looked different, too - younger, brighter, still dressed in white but more relaxed._

_“So,” Baekhyun told him. “The all-great Exalted of Insomnia also has weaknesses, then? I cannot believe.”_

_“Everyone has them,” Haze replied. “Even when one is the most powerful Blessed person in the whole Prosperan Empire.”_

_“Right now, were you talking about yourself in a great, you know, display of modesty or were you so kindly mentioning me?”_

_“What should I call you, then? The most powerful among those who can’t use Soul Magic? The greatest among the not-so-regular, regular folk?” Haze laughed, so good naturally that Chanyeol couldn’t help but to feel surprised. He took a step back, the edges of the white space in his dreams stretching around him. He didn’t really feel like looking, but at the same time he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the pair in front of him and the way their edges seemed to blur with the colorless background, like they were going to be swallowed by mist at any second._

_“You should give me credit too, as the person who is shaping Insomnia with you. You are definitely putting in your strength, but what could you do without my creativity, hard work and eternal patience? I am a key figure in the great scheme of things.”_

_“Of course you are.” Haze softly bumped Baekhyun’s forehead with his thumb in a gesture so familiar that Chanyeol felt his own heart hurt. “You’re my little bit of happiness in all this mess. Being at the top is lonely sometimes.”_

_“Wow. All that modesty. Humility. My great, lonely lord, devoted to rid the world of its painful burden of… pain.”_

_“I am serious.” Haze shook his head, mockingly chastising. “You asked about my weakness, and there’s only one when it comes to Soul Magic.”_

_“Which one? That it makes you deep and broody?”_

_“Excuse me, but what I am is charming and misunderstood. And, anyway, no. If you think it, it’s a pretty simple weakness: Soul Magic, the strongest part of it, the one that controls human emotion, cannot be used in the very own wizard who casts it, or in others like him. Like me.”_

_“So what? You can’t affect your own mind? It sounds pretty obvious.” Baekhyun frowned, looking up at him. His face looked so strangely young and beautiful without the eyepatch on - he was every inch the match for someone as unnaturally pretty as young Haze, even when he looked so confused. “Ah. I see. I see what you mean,” he said._

_“I told you it was pretty obvious.”_

_Young Haze’s figure started to fade into the white of that endless, colorless room, and only his present version remained - the one who had been standing next to Chanyeol from the start, with his hair pushed back and the mocking smirk on his lips._

_“Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” said Baekhyun, now alone among the swirls of mist, his figure translucent. “I’ll be the one to ease your pain if you’re ever hurt.”_

_His silhouette froze in the middle of a smile. His Baekhyun, the one who had fallen asleep only meters away from him that night, never smiled like that, not even when he was open and honest and the music in his soul matched the glow in his eyes._

_“He looks like a different person,” Chanyeol said._

_“He used to be different, then. An ambitious little thing,” Haze shook his hand and the shape disappeared in a puff of smoke. “He betrayed me. And you are still trusting him?”_

_“I do.”_

_“You really.” Haze sighed, and Baekhyun’s silhouette materialized from the mist again. He was the same boy, but the cheeky smile was gone from his face and everything that remained was an empty expression, the same lifeless eyes that Chanyeol had seen when Haze had made him dream with him for the first time. “This is what he became. I offered him to you, don’t you remember? And you said no.”_

_“No offense, Exalted, but I don’t think you’re in the place to offer grown-up adults to me like you were giving me some kind of weird birthday present.”_

_Baekhyun was staring up at him, his back against Haze’s chest. He didn’t react to his presence, he didn’t try to fight. It was so unnerving to watch that Chanyeol would have punched his reflection in the face._

_“You two are quite the pair.”_

_“What?”_

_“You are the kind to crave the things you shouldn’t even think of having, considering the situation, but you can’t help it. And Baekhyun… He did everything he could to destroy_ me _and there yet he his, shielding_ you _from harm like you and me like we weren’t two sides of the same coin.”_

_“You and I are different.”_

_“Black and white. And even though we still share a power, look the same and have feelings for the same boy.”_

_Chanyeol stammered. “You’re not right. I don’t—”_

_“Which one of the three ‘you don’t,’ exactly? You might dislike me, Park Chanyeol, but as long as we are two halves of the same soul, you may be partially immune to my magic, but I’ll still be in your head.” The illusion of Baekhyun faded away, and Haze broke through the smoke to grab him, one hand heavy on his shoulder and the other under his chin, forcing him to stay still and to look at him in the eye. “You should consider letting me in, you know? Because the weaker you force my body to be, the stronger I’ll become inside of you. I’ll be your own parasite and I’ll thrive while you wither. I’ll dig deep into you, and I’ll enjoy every second. So don’t fight it, boy. Give in.”_

_Haze’s breath was fanning in his face. Chanyeol’s hand closed around his wrist. “No.”_

_“Oh, really?” Haze whispered, drawing him close. “But how long will you be able to resist? You shouldn’t forget that, as hard as you struggle, you are still weaker than I am.”_

-

Chanyeol woke up with a low, scared gasp and Baekhyun practically all over him.

“Hey, you okay?” the other boy was saying, and he sounded concerned. “Are you awake now or do I need to slap you?”

It was the Baekhyun he remembered, not the happy boy who had joked with Haze, nor the lifeless thing that had stared at him with empty eyes. That one was the Baekhyun with the eyepatch on his face and blades hidden under his clothes. And he was, coincidentally, on top of him.

“What are you—?”

“You were tossing around, and you screamed. You were calling out.”

“For who?”

Baekhyun hesitated for a second, and Chanyeol felt himself blushing. “Whatever I said, I didn’t mean—”

“A couple of days ago, you told me that Haze appeared in your nightmares, so I thought you would like me to wake you up if you looked distressed,” Baekhyun rushed to add at the same time. “I was not sure if it was him, of course, but you were mumbling so here we are.”

Above his head there were only Baekhyun and the metal ceiling of Jongdae’s metro car store. They had been allowed to stay there until the situation settled down and bit and the marshall stopped sending patrols looking for them all around town. Sehun had gone to their old apartment to get clean clothes and supplies, but had finally stayed out and away of Baekhyun’s home - he had been lucky enough to see the police officers before he went in, he said.

They were safe, and they would remain that way for the moment, but having to stay in the tunnels meant the only place they could sleep were the seats of Jongdae’s old train, and that meant that they had to share the little space they had - and that they were alone.

Which was great because he felt comfortable with him. Bad, because he could almost hear Haze snorting somewhere deep inside his head.

And even worse because Baekhyun was making a conscious effort not to touch him - because he _couldn’t_ touch him - and Chanyeol was painfully and acutely aware of the main reason why he would not.

_If you could hurt Haze by hurting me, then, would you?_

“Well, I’m glad you woke me up, because it _was_ that guy messing with my head,” he said with a sigh, sitting up so Baekhyun would need to move away. He already looked so awake, so well dressed, as well prepared as if he lived in a mansion in West District instead of inside a train. “I don’t know what in the world he wants. He talks about domination and control sometimes and then he’s going on and on about me submitting to him and letting him in.”

“Which one was it this time?”

“I’m not sure. For a moment, he looked like he was about to kiss me.”

He thought that Baekhyun would look at least politely taken aback, but he actually smirked. “Talk about a blatant display of narcissism,” he commented. “Hah. I would tell you the mental image, aesthetically speaking, sounds a bit hot, if it wasn’t because Haze is Haze and that makes it a little disgusting.”

Chanyeol stared at him, speechless. “For god’s sake, what kind of stuff are you into?”

“Don’t let him corrupt your innocence, will you?”

Chanyeol deadpanned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Baekhyun covered his lips with his fingers. “Am I?”

“You _are_ kidding me,” Chanyeol accused. “And, for the sake of information, I’m not innocent enough to be corrupted. Whatever in the world it was that you were implying with that.”

“That’s nice to know,” said Baekhyun, letting out a loud guffaw. “But hey, are you in a better mood now? You look less pale, at least.”

“I’m… okay.” Chanyeol had forgotten for a while what the conversation had originally been about, and he shivered as the unpleasant memory made its way back into his mind. Baekhyun was observing him, expression unconventionally resolute.

“Being serious now, Chanyeol: whatever he’s telling you, don’t ever fall for it. He’s strong, and he might have a way into your dreams or into your head, but if he’s attacking you that is because he knows you have the power to resist him. He wouldn’t make such an effort to destroy something that doesn’t threaten him.”

 _You know him that well, huh?_ “Is that why he always tries so hard to hurt you?”

“Light is not a common Blessing to have, and it’s especially effective against miasma, so there you have it. He did a lot of damage but he couldn’t bring me down. And you won’t fall either, okay? Trust me, I know.”

It was easy to believe Baekhyun when he spoke - he had a way with words and with how he said them, like one of those TV stars that sold things that no one needed and made them a global success. He always sounded so sincere, and that was the scariest when the music Chanyeol heard in him matched that honesty. Everything in Baekhyun right then was fire and fear.

“I’ll try my best, I can promise that.”

“Eh, come on, why so gloomy? Being underground for days is already affecting you this much? You need to, let me see, get distracted.” Baekhyun looked around. “Ah, there it is, I have just what you need!”

Chanyeol started to reject the gesture as soon as he saw what the other boy was looking for, but he couldn’t prevent Baekhyun from taking his guitar out of his case and bringing it to him. He had turned it on, and the red lights danced on his skin as he sat beside him. “Only the special kids have their own, unique, designer-worthy weapon. So here, practice for a while so you can get the bad guy begging on his knees.”

“I don’t know if I feel like practicing.”

“Then play a song for me?”

“I— What?”

Baekhyun gave him a tiny, slightly shaky smile. “Well, I thought it would be nice to get you going if you just didn’t feel compelled to play for the sake of playing? And since you said once that you had never done a song for someone else before, I had the idea of—”

“Of wanting to be the first?” He was offering his own guitar to him, and Chanyeol took it, eyes on Baekhyun’s.

“I guess?”

“Why now?”

“I suppose that because I… Maybe it’s selfish on my side, but you offered once and since then I have wondered.”

“Wondered what?”

“How a person like you would see me.”

 _And how is a person like me?_ There was quiet tension under Baekhyun’s perfect posture and dark, leveled gaze - a struggle, a challenge. That boy’s soul was like a cyclone trapped in a crystal ball and the only difference between Chanyeol and the rest of the world was that he had glimpsed and he knew and he wanted the glass to break.

“Song or not, that’s a difficult thing to ask,” he said. “Especially because, for someone so bright, you’ve always appeared to me as the kind of person who doesn’t really want to be seen.”

“And you don’t mind? About that?”

“You have your own war going on. As do I. So it’s infuriating sometimes, but I can’t really say I don’t relate.”

In true honesty, it was way more than infuriating. He could see cracks in the glass in moments like those, and he wanted to break and to smash, to ruin it all so Baekhyun would stop looking so proper and perfect. He was a kid with a hammer, and he hadn’t ever craved anything so bad as he yearned to leave an everlasting mark in the only thing he wasn’t allowed to touch.

And touch he wanted. He wanted to set ablaze but not to burn.

“You want to know a secret?” Baekhyun said, wetting his lips. “Sometimes I think both you and I have a crave for destruction.”

The blood in Chanyeol’s veins was radioactive. There were sparks below his skin, a rhythm in his pulse, in the creak of the seat under him as he moved and in Baekhyun’s shallow intakes of breath.

“It may be,” he whispered. “But I’ve decided that I prefer to die in the crash if I have to instead of allowing my monsters to eat me from the inside out.”

It was all in tune. The pull. The good, and the bad - the possibilities.

And then, it was not.

“Hey, you two,” a voice said. “Not in my train.”

Chanyeol’s powers reacted to the intrusion way before his conscious mind did, resounding to the presence of the two newcomers and reaching out to them, connecting his melody to theirs with invisible tendrils of sound. It had been like that since his powers had settled: he still heard the song of every living human that came close enough but now his mind automatically tries to synchronize to anyone vulnerable to Soul Magic.

That seemed to include everyone he knew with the single exception of Byun Baekhyun - and most probably Haze. Chanyeol was starting to dread the moment he would need to come out to the surface again. If he hadn’t learned to control that _thing_ by then… Well, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that he would be screwed.

“Ah, Jongdae!” Baekhyun exclaimed, getting up, and only then Chanyeol remembered that they had been alone and so, so close just before he and his angry fanfare entered the train car. “And Sehun too! How are you doing.”

“Oh, I would have been wonderfully if I hadn’t been stopped in a road control. By the marshall’s army. While they apparently looked for you two.”

“Ah, stars. They should learn to give up, hah?” protested Baekhyun. “How many days has it been? I can’t go up, I can’t exactly go to the Blessed Order without someone to take me there… How am I supposed to do something productive with my life like this?”

“You should consider not turning half of the marshall’s house into a mess,” Sehun mentioned, shrugging.

“I did not! _We_ did not. In the first place, nothing would have happened if Colonel Suho hadn’t decided to return my favor by ratting Chanyeol out to the alternative version of his mother. Secondly, it _was_ a mess, but it affected the people in the room, not the whole house. And third, I had nothing to do with it - it all was Haze’s fault.”

“It’s always Haze’s fault.”

“Because I thought we all agreed that he is in fact very evil?”

“If I were the marshall, I would still want to put you in a cell,” Jongdae stated. “And especially Haze’s reflection. His presence has proven to be dangerous: there’s a wing in the hospital full of the guards in the marshall’s house, all of them infected.”

“But Chanyeol didn’t do that.”

“That’s not as relevant as it seems: he was there, he was following your plan, and thanks to that innocent men and women are sick.”

“Wow, Jongdae, thank you for enlightening me with your wisdom. I don’t know what I would do without it.”

Jongdae’s fanfare was too loud in the narrow metro car, and Chanyeol groaned internally, wishing the volume would go down. And of course, his power reacted and the music went down, suddenly much calmer.

“Sorry Baekhyun, I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said, “but the town is on edge and road controls make me feel uncomfortable.”

Baekhyun raised his eyebrows at Chanyeol. “Control that, young man. He doesn’t seem like himself if he’s not generally passive-aggressive towards me. He even looks apologetic.”

“I’m sorry?” Chanyeol replied from his seat. “I still don’t know how to turn it off. I suppose it’ll fade off eventually.”

“How long is _eventually_? I’m serious about this: I don’t want him smiling at me next.”

Sehun deadpanned at them. “You’re both awful.”

“What did I even do?” Chanyeol protested.

“Enchanting a guy? Turning into Baekhyun’s new partner in crime? Making him approve of Soul Magic? Or of you, at least. You look like very good friends.”

That guy had said that all smirking, like he was proving a point now that Jongdae wasn’t exactly himself, and Chanyeol didn’t know what he was supposed to reply. “We used to be tense with each other before, but not anymore. Or at least there’s no tension of the usual kind, I—”

“Near-death experiences unite people, Sehunnie,” Baekhyun interrupted his rambling, smiling in his general direction. “You should try it sometime. It’s cathartic.”

The other boy huffed. “Whatever you say I don’t exactly need life advice from you. We only came in this early because we wanted to tell you that we arranged your meeting.”

“Wait, what? You really did? With a member of the Blessed Order like I told you?”

“Well yeah, I mentioned you would be interested in selling books on the topic you told me and he said he had material to offer.”

“Books? What are you talking about? What topic?” Chanyeol asked.

“The bond between worlds, and between reflections,” replied Sehun. “Baekhyun’s idea.”

“Reflections?” repeated Chanyeol, turning towards Baekhyun, confused. “What are you trying to do?”

“It’s an excuse,” the other boy replied. “Or at least _kind of_ an excuse. Remember the remaining mirror we need to destroy? The members of the Blessed Order keep it in their library, but of course they won’t be nice and let us do our job. They won’t even let me close to their headquarters, so I needed to give at least one of them a reason to come out and meet me. There was a high chance they sent someone if they didn’t know it was me calling them _and_ if we offered good money - they love to act all high and mighty but they have been broke since Haze took over.”

“So then the topic of the book you mentioned…”

“It was a way for them to meet us _but_ I’m also interested about it. So it’s an excuse but not exactly a lie, if you get what I mean?”

“Baekhyun is always too interested about things,” intervened Jongdae, still sounding pretty groggy. “That’s so remarkable about him.”

Baekhyun sank a hand in his own hair, curling his fingers in the brown strands at the side his head. “Thanks for the insight,” he muttered, turning then to Chanyeol and Sehun with a frown. “We should really let him rest until he is back to his usual self. Having him saying positive stuff about me without being obviously sarcastic is making me feel weird. We should concentrate on the Blessed Order man instead. When are we meeting him?”

Sehun shrugged. “This afternoon?”

Chanyeol blinked. “What?”

“Oh, so soon. That’s nice, I was tired of waiting. Do you need to be there when we meet the guy? Are you coming with us?”

Baekhyun and Sehun started to talk weapons and clothes, books and food and lamp. They would be gone for two or three days, they said, until they could reach the wizards and their order if things went well, and Chanyeol realized he hadn’t asked, not exactly. He had always taken for granted that the Blessed Order would have its headquarters somewhere in town, like the Magitec Research Center, or the Euphoria Hospital, or the marshall’s house had all been, but then the marshall had forbidden wizardry and he hadn’t seen any other wizard except for her, and Baekhyun, and himself - and of course Haze.

“Wait a second, with things as they are it’s not like we can go walking around town in broad daylight,” he said. “But we _aren’t going_ to go up there, right?” Sehun looked at him like Chanyeol was a small kid and he was the all-knowing adult but Baekhyun just grinned. And that was certainly worse, because he recognized that smile. “Where are we meeting that guy and why do I feel like I am not going to like whatever you tell me?”

“Oh, because last time I checked, you didn’t seem to like the abandoned Insomnia Metro tunnels much. And guess where the Blessed Order hides?”

Chanyeol covered his mouth with his hand. “Oh, no,” he muttered.

“Oh yes. Surprise!”

—

Chanyeol should have known that, sooner on later, he would have needed to face the deeper side of those tunnels. It was like an unwritten rule in his life: if he wanted to buy something, it would sell out; if he didn’t join a lottery, his friends would win; if he liked someone, that person would already be dating (or, as an alternate option, he would be the ex of his evil twin); and if he thought there was a part of this city he didn’t want to visit _at all_ he would find himself traveling there in no time, lamp in hand and shadows at his back.

He had never liked the darkness, because the only things it had given him were monsters and bad dreams. Haze’s nightmares turned his whole world into white noise, but there was a moment of total blackness before, and he dreaded that as much, because he could move and could hear but he didn’t see.

Those tunnels were almost the same thing, with the only difference that he couldn’t wake up.

Sehun was leading the way, holding his own lamp up high, like that could do something to bring light to the pitch-black atmosphere and Baekhyun followed, his step steady but his hands not glowing for once. Chanyeol could almost _feel_ the boy’s impulse to turn his own power on, the ring of magic and sound in his veins and the twitch in his fingers, but Sehun had asked him not to and Baekhyun had scoffed and rejected a lamp, but listened anyway.

Baekhyun’s light worked best against miasma and there was no trace of it down there, so Chanyeol objectively agreed that he shouldn’t be wasting strength, much less when his power seemed anything but endless, but he had grown used to the glow and the warmth and he missed them - especially because he knew they were not alone.

They had never been, not since they had left the safety of the train platform and the upper tunnels.

Chanyeol could hear their songs as his mind reached out to theirs and tried to ignore the curiosity, the distrust and the dark chords of violence. They were moving across someone else’s ground, a city under a city, and it wasn’t welcoming.

“How much further?” he asked, but Sehun hushed at him. Perhaps he could feel it too, in a different way than he did. For starters, Baekhyun seemed as tense as Chanyeol was, his whole posture adopting the whole air of fluid grace that he used as a shield every time he thought he was going to be in for a fight.

They had been going down for almost thirty minutes, and he was sure that the good folks of Insomnia had probably abandoned that project when their subway was about to be opened, because everything there looked unused and dusty but completely finished, from the black concrete vaults overhead to the set of rails under their feet. That was the way he would have imagined the metro tunnels back at home to be - if it wasn’t for the presence and the _silence,_ the suffocating mass of quiet all around them. Chanyeol was used to hearing his own music, as well as other people’s songs, but right then, beyond his melody there was nothing. The stations back at home were full of voices, laughter, the muffled sound of trains stopping, doors opening and a thousand of steps on the floor. But there, Chanyeol had his music and only, like he was hearing the sound through earphones and everything else was blocked out.

He was the first among them to notice the presence at the end of the tunnel - he couldn’t see the person, of course, but his mind wrapped around a soft song, testing the waters. His step faltered for a moment and soon Baekhyun was with him, frown cast between light and shadows. “You okay?” he mouthed. Chanyeol pointed forward.

First, there was the yellow, flickering light of another lamp, and then they saw the man as they neared the source of the glow. He was sitting with his back on the black wall of the tunnel and his arms around his knees and looked small and lithe, like a teenager. Chanyeol stole a glance at Baekhyun and saw his mouth twitch before his features stilled in his usual, practiced smile.

“Ah,” he said, when the stranger looked up at the sound of his steps and frowned. His voice boomed across the tunnel, making the shadows that had been following them retreat. “If it isn’t Lu! Long time no see.”

There was confusion in the boy’s face until both his expression and his melody switched to discomfort mode. _Here we go again,_ Chanyeol thought, fighting the urge of his own mind to modify, soften, blur the edges until there was no fight left in him. He felt both powerful and nauseous when he considered, and forced his brain to focus precisely on the bad side of things, concentrating on breathing in and out and following the stranger’s words when he spoke.

“Why is— You didn’t tell me Byun Baekhyun would be coming!” he was exclaiming, eyes on Sehun like he had committed some terrible sin. “I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I had known!”

“You didn’t ask,” replied Sehun with a shrug. “I told you someone was interested, you were the one reckless enough to not ask who the person was.”

“But I thought… How was I supposed to know that you would bring the Exalted’s lover of all people?”

“Ex-lover,” Baekhyun corrected, smile bright as fresh blood.

Once he was able to stare at him up close, Chanyeol realized that the stranger wasn’t so young. He was thin, and blond, and good-looking, but he had little creases at the corner of his eyes and his lips, and they seemed to sink into his skin when he pressed his mouth into a thin line. Chanyeol had thought that perhaps regular wizards would look different than regular people, the same way Baekhyun shone brighter than anyone else. Haze looked inhuman, special in his own frightening style, and the marshall had been authoritative despite being sick and broken, and all of them were ostracized wizards, separated from the rest for their own different reasons. Baekhyun had said the members of the Blessed Order were grumpy and hard to deal with, and that had conjured quite the special image of them on his mind, but the young man in front of them wasn’t wearing a black tunic or a pointy hat, just brown laborer trousers, a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and suspenders. The disdain in his voice was a hundred percent angry wizard, however.

“You’re not welcome here. You know the rules.”

Baekhyun let out a very dramatic sigh. “Even if I got cash for you? The last thing I knew from you was that you were selling the books of your oh-so-portentous library to spoiled little nobles in exchange for the money to maintain it. You know Luhan, I am a businessman, I thought we could have a deal.”

The man scoffed. “We know how you get your money.”

“Throwing parties? Or you mean smuggling stuff? Magical objects, like those things you keep deep-down in the tunnels. You could share the marshall’s point of view and go on and on about how magic and alcohol and fun after midnight help the miasma to spread, but that would make you all a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?” He dug into his pocket and took a roll of dark grey bills, offering them to Luhan with a smirk. “Don’t turn off deals that are convenient for you. I brought you the savings of my life, you know?”

He looked like one of those young, rich heirs in TV dramas, and Chanyeol found himself clenching his fists at the dissonance between his pose and his melody, but Luhan couldn’t hear, and most possibly didn’t care, so everything he did was to shake his hand in a very angry, sudden gesture.

The money Baekhyun had been holding flew out of his hand and up into the air, the notes separating and surrounding them like tiny, angry birds in full sync. They circled them in a quick paper dance, leaving a very still and a still smirking Baekhyun in the middle. “What a wonderful display of power,” the latter commented. “Now could you get me my money back? As far as I know, we still haven’t made a deal.”

The flying bills froze mid-air, and then fell to the ground like ashes. “The Blessed Order does not wish to make a deal with you.”

“And so they choose to literally throw my money to the floor of an old tunnel? No wonder you are a specie at the verge of extinction, Luhan. It’s pretty clear that you don’t have what it takes when it comes to basic survival.”

“Oh, excuse me, your Exalted Majesty. Because, according to you, our current situation is _our_ fault and what you and Lord Park Chanyeol did has nothing to do with it!”

“Hey! You shouldn’t say those things,” Chanyeol protested, considering that he should at least intervene when his name was mentioned. Luhan turned towards him for the first time, scowling, but he froze in his spot, lips comically parted, once he had a good look at his face.

“You’re—” he started, turning towards Baekhyun accusingly. “You brought him here! Are you crazy?”

“Not Haze,” said Chanyeol. “I’m his reflection, actually, from the other side of the mirror. And he didn’t bring me here; I came by myself, and because I wanted to.”

“You look so much like him,” blurted Luhan.

“That’s the point about reflections. If you knew Haze well enough, you would be aware that I’m not him. His usual modus operandi consists in filling every little space with miasma and mind-controlling people into submission. And I’m not doing that, am I?” _Even though I could. I could soften the melody, turn it off, make you surrender._ He wasn’t Haze but he could almost see him, standing at his side and whispering those wretched words into his ear.

Baekhyun tapped the floor with his foot in a quick, rhythmical pattern. It was the only part of his body that wasn’t completely still. “Take the money. It will help you, and I’m only requesting a little help in return. I’m on a mission here, and I’m trying to do something that will serve you all, much more than it’ll serve myself, so listen for once in your life.”

“And what it is you want? Those books Sehun asked us for?”

“More or less. I want access to the library, and I want to talk to the librarian.”

Luhan’s expression hardened. “That’s something I won’t allow.”

“Ask the librarian first. I’ll wait.”

“No.”

“I am also one of the Blessed of Insomnia. It’s my right to demand entrance. So I request it,” said Baekhyun, loud and clear. “I’ll beg for it if you want me to.”

Luhan observed him for a long, silent moment, and Chanyeol had never wanted to punch a man as hard as he wanted to hit that guy in the nose. “Byun Baekhyun,” the wizard finally replied, every word slow and soft, like poisoned honey on his lips. “No one can request to exercise his rights as a member of the Blessed Order after being cast out from it. You’re not one of us; you should take your money and go.”

“As expected from you,” Baekhyun whispered, letting out a soft, humorless laugh. He remained still at the center of a circle of grey, gaze fixed somewhere in front of him and hands in his pockets. Chanyeol thought that he would fight back - he always did, someone had to.

“Baekhyun,” Sehun said softly, “perhaps we should go back. Find another way, okay?”

There wasn’t any other way, Chanyeol knew that.

“Wait,” he called to a retreating Luhan. He didn’t want to talk to that guy. He didn’t want to be taken to his stupid library. He didn’t like to _beg._ His own powers were ready and would have taken hold of the man so fast. He wasn’t the best at controlling them, but he could have made the man concede to what Baekhyun wanted, kiss the ground at his feet and lead them further down the tunnels. He only needed to modify the melody and he _should._ That bastard deserved it. “If Baekhyun is not allowed to exercise those rights as a member of the Blessed Order, then I do.”

Luhan turned around, eyes wide open. “What are you saying?”

Baekhyun had finally moved, to turn towards him, and Chanyeol could see that he was smiling. That spurred him on. _Do whatever the hell Baekhyun would have done, if he were you._ “I am a Soul Mage. I am Blessed. And I haven’t been cast out, now have I? Maybe Haze has been, but not me. So what if I am the one who wants access to your library. Wouldn’t you grant it to me?”

“You are the reflection of—”

“The reflection of a man who I want to destroy. Maybe it’s just me, but you wizards don’t look especially well-off, so maybe you shouldn’t be rejecting help when it comes.”

Luhan’s power flickered, on and off, and the fallen bills trembled on the floor. “The Blessed Order does not recognize traitors,” he protested.

“Which is great, since I’m not one.”

“You’re a telepath, Luhan, why don’t you ask your precious librarian? That’s exactly why he always sends you as a messenger, right? And as terrible as he is, at least he’s more reasonable than you,” added Baekhyun. He was his usual self again, slightly mocking smile on his lips. It was when Chanyeol saw that gesture than he realized that they had, for the moment, won. He had helped Baekhyun to win. “Come on, talk to him. I’m waiting.”

There was a moment of silence as Luhan begrudgingly closed his eyes. Then, a huff and a groan. Chanyeol tried to remain as impassive and serious as any commanding wizard, but he couldn’t cast away the smile on his face.

“I have talked to the librarian,” Luhan pompously announced after a small pause. “And he, in his grace, has granted you access. He wishes to speak with Byun Baekhyun too, so he may accompany you at least until the entrance.”

It was something, at least, and Chanyeol would take it. They could deal with that librarian later. Even though, before that… “I have one more request. Could you please give me Baekhyun’s money back? You were the one to throw it down, and considering that’s the payment I, too, have to offer… You know, I don’t think it’s very polite of you to expect me to kneel on the dirty floor to get it back when you could do me the favor with your power. Do you get what it mean?”

Everything had sounded much more cooler and hero-like in his mind, but that would have to do, and it actually did. And the best part was that he heard Baekhyun laugh once the bills flew from the floor back into his hand.

And that, well, _that_ was certainly great.

—

“You’re not mad, right?” Chanyeol asked in a soft whisper.

They had been traveling down and down across the tunnels, for so long that Chanyeol had lost the sense of time. Back when they were searching for Luhan, he had already thought that it was a shame that all that metro system had gone to waste considering how vast it was, but only then he realized how much of an understatement had the word _huge_ been.

The upper tunnels looked finished, like an invisible train was going to hum over the rails at any second, but the more they descended, the most traces of ruin and abandon they found. Remains of building tools could still be seen, magitec items that had probably been forbidden after The Purge, buried to deep underground even for the smugglers who would have sold them and abandoned next to unfinished vaults and piles of materials, like the workers could return at any second. At one point, the black concrete on the walls gave way to dark, shiny stone and the ground under their feet turned rocky and humid and irregular.

The air was heavy and hot, an invisible but real reminder of the weight of the city above their heads, and even though Chanyeol had been wanting to speak for long, he had been ridiculously afraid of being the one to break the silence. And yet, that silence felt like a deadweight on his feet, and he needed to keep moving forward so he spoke, waiting until Sehun and Luhan had distanced enough from them to not hear.

The question seemed obvious enough to him, and he knew Baekhyun was aware of what he wanted it to mean, but still he made the effort to look politely confused.

“Mad about what?” he asked. He didn’t look angry, not even under his usual mask, but he could have been. Chanyeol would have. Maybe.

“For butting in your conversation with Luhan? You know, saying I was a member of the Blessed Order after he started saying you had been cast out. He was treating you bad, and it was your battle to fight, and still I went and told him he should let _me_ in.”

“You got us inside, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun replied after a second. “I cleared our way to the first _and_ the second mirrors we needed. It was about time that you did something by yourself. You’re like a little bird, leaving your momma’s nest for the first time and I am so glad you’ve learned to fly so well.”

“That’s not what I meant. He was being an asshole to you.”

“And?”

“I don’t know? But if I think about it, I—”

“What? Do you think he wounded my pride and that I should have been the one to man up and defend it? That you were stealing the spotlight from me?”

“You’re better at words that I am.”

“Possibly true: you rant a lot, Park. And yet, I might be a pro at talking people into doing what I want, but sometimes that is not enough. I would know. Think about persuasion like you would about picking a lock: sometimes you will get away with skill, but some doors won’t open unless you own a very specific key. Your presence was that key here, and we needed to move on. My personal battles are irrelevant here in the end, as it is my pride.”

“But you are proud. Prouder than me.”

Baekhyun observed him as they walked, his expression open in slight surprise. “It might be so,” he admitted, lips curving upwards, “but what is pride without honor? Pride is only for the men who can afford it.”

“And why can’t you? Haze?”

“It gets on the way of my duty. If I have to beg, then I’ll beg. There’s no more to it.”

 _Baekhyun, the man with a purpose,_ Haze’s voice said, low in Chanyeol’s ear. If he stopped to think and feel, Chanyeol could almost envision him, walking at his side in the shadows, always there and always watching. It was unnerving, like a tingling under his skin that he couldn’t shake off. _He wasn’t like that when he stood at my side, you see. He would have done anything for approval; between controlling and being controlled it was obvious what he chose when he was with me._

 _And why the fuck is this other me so disgusting?_ Chanyeol snapped, shutting the voice down.

He could understand Baekhyun, in a way. He had always chased his own sound, the music within him, but it was starting to ring so loud - chords, melodies and voices in this scary, deafening melody - that he could just listen and modify, edit the threads of sound while he prayed for the symphony of the world to stop. Baekhyun had asked that morning for Chanyeol to make him a song, to close his eyes and hear Chanyeol’s thoughts of him. And the thing was that Chanyeol had always made music - he had listened and modified and turned the world’s melody into his own - but now everything around him was so loud that he couldn’t concentrate hard enough to create something new anymore. He craved for a second of silence, but that was something he couldn’t afford.

Instead, he was walking towards the depths of Insomnia to turn the volume up.

 _Sometimes_ _I think both you and I crave for destruction,_ Baekhyun had said, and Chanyeol knew enough to consider he was totally and absolutely right.

And yet, as he stole a glance at Baekhyun walking beside him, he still hoped he could help the boy behind the mask to stay afloat.

“How many secrets are you not telling me?” he asked, as the tunnel took another turn. He could barely see Luhan now, and Sehun’s silhouette was on the way to disappearing after him. He didn’t intend to rush, or to pressure, just to know.

“Bad ones? Only two.”

“So that means there’s good ones as well?”

“Not so bad ones, I guess?” Baekhyun replied, smiling at him, all warm.

Back after they had started working together for real, Chanyeol had decided to be honest because he had believed someone had to take the first step and start trusting the others, but there was a thing he hadn’t known then, and that now ringed through his veins like a swansong. Not all secrets had to do with mutual trust - the ones buried the deepest were all about how much you trusted yourself.

“Not so bad ones, huh? That’s a plus.” _I hope you can let go of your burden soon._

_—_

When they finally arrived at their destination, Chanyeol was seriously starting to believe that his feet would fall off.

He didn’t know how deep they were, or what part of Insomnia was above them - or even if there was a city over their heads, because they could have walked out of the Insomnia perimeter or be under the Veil river for all he knew - but, honestly speaking, he couldn’t care less. The Blessed Order had hidden from both Haze and the marshall after The Purge, and they had done a hell of a great job.

No one in their right mind would lose hours of precious time on searching the tunnels to find those people. And even if they did, Chanyeol doubted they would be able to find them without getting lost forever.

Luhan had quietly guided them down and down, across abandoned metro tunnels and old mining sites after that, leading a descent into the heart of the black mountain under Insomnia. It had been the first time since he had come across the mirror that Chanyeol had felt genuinely cold, a kind of humid, penetrating chill that sank right into his bones, taking hold and freezing his fingers and limbs, and his feet inside his shoes. It was the cold of the mist, Baekhyun had explained, by the time Chanyeol saw the first traces of curls of whitish smoke oozing from the walls: as one of the jewels of the Prosperan Empire, Insomnia had been built over a source of magical power, a symbol of fortune and strength - the Black City that never sleeps.

 _The Black City that never wakes up,_ Haze’s scornful voice had added in the crevices of his mind before Chanyeol used all of his willpower to shut it off.

The entrance to the library of the Blessed Order was at the middle of an old stone tunnel. The first thing that Chanyeol noticed were the massive metal doors blocking the way, a thick wall of grey over black, polished, shiny and strangely unadorned - no flowers, no vines, no trace of the intricate designs that the people up above seemed to love. They looked so heavy that the boy had no idea how in the world could a human being open that, but they just parted for them when they arrived, soundlessly and slowly. Chanyeol took a moment to process that it had actually been Luhan who had done it, with nothing more than a small gesture and no visible strain on his body.

At the other side of the gates, the tunnel had been turned into a room, illuminated by the usual warm, yellowish light of the Insomnia-typical electricity. It looked strangely warm and strangely empty, but mismatched carpets on the floor, tapestries on the black stone walls and a magic, blue fire in a big chimney on one side, but no people there to enjoy it all besides a tiny, dark-haired man sitting behind a desk.

Unlike Luhan, he wore something dark and baggy that suspiciously looked like some kind of robe, and that would have been funny enough to laugh out loud or at least make some sort of snarky comment… if it wasn’t because Chanyeol recognized the guy as soon as he saw him. He would have, anywhere, and pretty much despite himself.

“Kyungsoo?” he asked, breathlessly. He knew enough by then to be aware that the man before him wasn’t the person he knew, but the Insomnia version looked so much like his friend that he felt torn between laughter and pain. Sehun’s Insomnia reflection had tiny but noticeable differences, the hair being the most notorious, but that Kyungsoo had the same black hair as the one he knew - perhaps a little longer, but that was all. His friend would have never worn a tunic so ridiculous, but he was the type, indeed, to dress in black from head to toe, or to frown at him like he was stupid - as that guy was pretty much doing right then and there.

“Am I mistaken if I assume that this… inconvenience is Byun’s doing?” he asked. As everyone else, he had a song that surrounded him as he spoke, and it had the solemn and slow chords of a funeral march. Chanyeol would have laughed in relief, because it was _so_ like him to own the kind of melody that one only would play when a close relative had died, but he didn’t believe Kyungsoo would appreciate that.

“You know me too well,” Baekhyun commented with a sigh. “There were things that needed to be done, so I did them.”

“The Exalted’s reflection needed to be brought to Insomnia.”

“Yes.”

“And I take that all of that chaos in the surface has been caused by your… activities with him.”

“More or less.”

“Give me one single reason for not throwing you away at the marshall’s feet, Byun.”

“I am charming?” Baekhyun said, shrugging. “That, and I came with Chanyeol. And with all the savings of my meaningless, sad life to donate them for your cause. You should at least listen.”

“There are some things money won’t get you,” Kyungsoo interrupted him, absolutely poker faced. “Staring with my interest.”

“Wow,” Chanyeol commented out loud. “You know that you are exactly like the version of yourself in my world, only more savage?”

That seemed enough to capture Kyungsoo’s interest. “Do you know my reflection?” he asked, giving him a glare so grim that Chanyeol gulped.

“Um, yeah. You— He’s a friend of Sehun’s and me in my side of the mirror. Our best friend. Of sorts. We’re an inseparable trio.”

Sehun sighed in something akin to annoyance, but Kyungsoo didn’t even show a reaction to the information. “Sehun, myself and His Exalted Majesty also used to be friends when we were young children, but that charade ended when we discovered that he had plans to toy with the minds of all the inhabitants of the city we lived in. We severed our bonds, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Baekhyun muttered under his breath.

Chanyeol wished he still had the capacity to be witty, or ironic, or even sarcastic, but he had been rendered speechless.

“These worlds have more in common than what you think they do,” commented Kyungsoo, before rising up from behind his desk and walking towards Baekhyun with his sempiternal frown still on his brow. “And this Chanyeol over here may not know, but you do, Byun. If his presence here is your doing, as you in fact claim it is, what are you trying to achieve by playing with us all? You know the rules. You should be aware of the fact that two reflections shouldn’t be allowed to exist in the same side of the mirror and yet you’ve taken part in bringing this… person here? What has this city even done to you?”

“I’m trying to save Insomnia just as much as you do! Even more! At least I’m not hiding underground and selling my books to buy myself food like you and Luhan and all the remaining Blessed do.”

“We are trying to think and survive. Not all of us believe that penitence will bring us salvation.”

“Not all of us are to blame for Euphoria Syndrome spreading around town,” Luhan added, sweet and poisonous. “None of the Blessed ever stood on the Exalted’s side, Byun Baekhyun. Even his own mother turned her back on him. Only one of them betrayed us to join him, and now we all are paying for his mistakes.”

Baekhyun took the blow silently, without bending his head. “Even if you’re not to blame for what happened, you should still be working to fix it.”

“You’re not welcome here.”

“Oh, I am so grateful to know. How many times did you tell me?”

“The sooner we do what we came here to do, the sooner we’ll leave,” Chanyeol intervened. “So if you agreed to let us talk, then listen?”

Kyungsoo pressed his lips slightly, but ended up nodding in the end. He didn’t offer them a chair but he stood with them as he started talking. “I was curious about the Exalted’s reflection,” he admitted. “I wanted to know if it all was a trick, if it all was another of his and Byun’s plans to bring ruin upon us, but it is true to an extent that this man is not the Lord Haze we know. There’s something different in your magic, in the way your power is shaped - everything around the Exalted was noise. That’s why I let you in.”

 _So what?_ Haze’s voice whispered in Chanyeol’s head. _So he can kill us? For all of his faults, Baekhyun is much more of a quick thinker, don’t you think? He came up with that idea way before._

 _Will you shut up?_ the boy thought back. “And what are you going to do now that we are here together?”

“It depends. What do you want?”

“To vanquish Haze,” Baekhyun replied without a second thought. “To stop him and the sickness he’s created, whatever the price.”

“And you?” Kyungsoo asked Chanyeol. “Have you studied the theory of reflections? Do you know what will happen to you when the Exalted is killed?”

Chanyeol lowered his gaze. “I don’t want to die,” he admitted. “I think that’s obvious, right? No one ever wants to unless they’ve lost the will to live. I don’t know how selfless I am, exactly. I don’t have a duty to this city, and I don’t want to sacrifice myself for it. So if you ask what I _do_ want, then it is for Haze to leave me be. For him to take the shield he placed on me so I can travel through the mirror back to my version of things, and also for him to stop all this crap and release my mother from that sickness he infected her with. And for him to stop torturing Baekhyun, also.” The other boy shot him a look, but Chanyeol didn’t feel strong enough to gaze back. “What I want is Haze out of my life and of my head, but you know what? He won’t go. So I’ll kick him out. I’ll take his power and bury it down in a place where he can’t reach it, and then I’ll turn around and leave him behind.”

“So you want to incapacitate him but not kill him,” said Kyungsoo after a heavy pause. “And you want me and the people I represent to support you? Once more, why?”

“It’s a plan,” replied Sehun.

“It’s our only plan,” added Baekhyun.

Chanyeol smiled. “What do you have to lose?”

\--

Kyungsoo didn’t seem that convinced, but he took Chanyeol and the others to the mirror room anyway.

Not matter how haughty he acted, it was obvious that the man was the keeper of a world in decadence. The inhabitants of that place had done their best to hide themselves and their treasures in a place where no one would find them, but their whole world was made of dust and ruins, the tapestries and pictures and antique parchments on the world so well preserved from The Purge, but barely no one there to look at them.

As Chanyeol walked behind Kyungsoo, he only saw two living people: a young girl with blue flames between her fingers and a middle-aged man who didn’t even look up from the pot where he was making plants grow. He was able to feel more, the presence of maybe two or three people more, just at the edge of his perception, but they were too few, a dying species.

Baekhyun had mentioned once that the tainted mist damaged the ones who could manipulate it the most. And wizards called themselves the Blessed, but in Insomnia everyone lied.

“We have seals activated,” Kyungsoo told them, once he had guided them to another polished metal door of plain steel. “No one with tainted blood will be able to walk in or out of the inner sanctum.”

“So you all are safe from Haze even if he decides to take a stroll out the mirror?” Baekhyun asked with a chuckle that didn’t reach his visible, very black eye.

“The mirror is covered,” Kyungsoo pointed out, tone still neutral. “But still, we have done our best to keep it safe, and to keep us safe from its influence. The Exalted’s miasma is a dangerous thing.”

“So we would be doing you a favor if we actually broke it, huh? One less old thing for you to keep.”

“I don’t know what to think about all this,” admitted Kyungsoo, tapping with one black boot on the carpeted floor. “Transferring the power from one reflection to another? Sending this Chanyeol back to his world and thus leaving the other powerless… I am sure such a plan will affect the balance somehow.”

“Do you really think it’ll make it worse than it is?” asked Baekhyun back. “I needed two things from you. One is books, and I’m sure you can provide. The second is a way for the world to escape Haze’s terror, and I’d like to think that at least the librarian of the Blessed Order has guts enough not to hide behind my own sins to justify his lack of activity.”

Kyungsoo’s fingers drummed on the steel of the gate. “Will you leave if I listen to you?” he asked. Chanyeol felt the urge to get in his head and turn down the volume of that heavy song of his, if only because it was too loud, and too clear, and felt so vulnerable. “If I go on with your plan and the Blessed Order collaborates in this alleged _only way_ to bring the Exalted’s Reign to an end, would you go away after that?”

He was talking to both of them, but only Baekhyun’s melody faltered. “Of course,” he conceded, all pure-white energy. “I wouldn’t like to spend more than the time I strictly needed in a place that feels so much like a tomb. Give us what we ask for and we’ll be rushing to return under the rays of the sun. Isn’t it so, Chanyeol?”

“I guess so,” the boy agreed, because there wasn’t anything much he could have said.

 _I guess so,_ Haze echoed in his head.

Despite everything, Kyungsoo considered his options for a couple of seconds more. “Very well,” he accepted. “So you can’t ever say the Blessed Order haven’t tried their best to carry out every possible course of action. Once the sun rises, the Exalted’s reflection will walk into the Inner Sanctum and play his song. Tomorrow.”

 _So there you are, almost ready for the final verse of the Murder Melody,_ Haze’s voice whispered.

Chanyeol didn’t reply, not to him, not to Kyungsoo. His friend’s reflection seemed everything but trusting - what a good citizen he was, allowing himself to risk his life - and his own looked everything but afraid of what would happen when the sun came up. He had been granted permission, but he would still be completely alone at the inner sanctum at the other side of the gates. He was scared, he didn’t know what to do, but there was no other plan he could think of, so he nodded.

“It will do me good to rest for tonight. What time is it, anyway?”he said.

When he looked to his right, he found Baekhyun staring at him, expression unreadable but gaze so, so soft.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Chanyeol resisted the impulse to flinch his forehead, to make a face so he would smile. He hated the concept of Baekhyun being worried about him. “I’ll have to be,” he said in the end. “I’ll have to be.”

\--

What Baekhyun remembered the most about his life before Haze came along was being sad and angry. Both of them came in turns, some days, and together when he was feeling the weakest, those times when the world was dull and grey and the only thing he wanted was to sleep until the edges of the world blurred and nothing was important anymore.

He had been good at lying back then, too, with the artless grace of the person who does something by instinct a lot: he lied to get what he wanted, lied so others would let him be, lied to say he was happy as he was. Haze was the only one to see through his untruthfulness and to offer him a place at his side. He hadn’t care if something inside of Baekhyun was that ugly - instead, he had told him he would turn him into an artist of deceit.

Baekhyun had wondered many times if there was a specific moment when his life, as he knew it and wanted it, had gone to hell. A point of no return of sorts, a place where he could have still turned back if only he had been brave enough to look at his sins in the face as he now did. He supposed that place would be somewhere in the months he spent with Haze, without caring that he wasn’t really loved, without wanting to see that their sacred mission wasn’t really the greater good.

There he should have stopped and listened to the signals, and maybe then he would have been able to stop Haze before The Purge, and so Insomnia would have been safe, the other Chanyeol would have never Traveled to that side and he wouldn’t be sitting in the Blessed Order’s library after midnight, his chest hurting while he tried to find a flicker of hope to cling to somewhere inside a useless pile of books.

“Shouldn’t you sleep?” a voice called.

Baekhyun shook his head as Sehun’s familiar figure came into the light. “I’ve gotten permission from Kyungsoo to check the library, but I had to promise we would leave this place tomorrow as soon as Chanyeol finished with the mirror,” he explained. “Did you know that Prosperan written and spoken forms started to change once the link between worlds was established? You have seen the classic writing system; it has nothing to do with the modern alphabet, right? Apparently there used to be a spoken tongue to go along with the old glyphs, but it got lost as the worlds at both ends of the mirror started to adapt to each other.”

“I never really paid attention in my history classes,” Sehun commented, with that silly, fake disdain of him, while he sat in the chair at the other side of his table.

“You could have learned this all by listening to Yixing while he speaks. He loves everything related to this topic, you know? He was the first one to inform me. He looked very excited to be talking to someone as notorious as I was, back when we first met.”

“The infamous bender of light.”

“Yeah. He looked so surprised that I was willing to listen, but I actually learned a lot about our two worlds. This one, the planet with an excess of magicians and not enough energy for them to use and the other, the world with so much energy and barely no wizards. It looked like a match made in heaven.”

“Does any of the things Yixing told you serve you now?” Sehun asked.

“Serve me for what?”

“Helping Park Chanyeol.”

“Well, I—” Baekhyun had came there for answers while Chanyeol slept, because he didn’t want him to know, but he had found more empty spaces than books, in the shelves he had rushed to look at. “I was wondering if there would be a way to undo the spell the ancient wizards casted, you know? That kind of thing. To make the link break and send everything back to the world where it originally belonged. I’ve been wanting to know for some time now, if such a thing would be possible.”

“Leaving this world without a source of magic.” Sehun made a face. “That is a cruel thing to wish for.”

“And still better than leaving this place at Haze’s mercy. How many wizards remain, anyway? All Blessed are silly, selfish beings - I wouldn’t feel bad for them if the thing they screwed two worlds for was finally taken away from them.”

“What about magitec?”

“Dispensable. But then now, what I want is just a tiny, unachievable possibility, huh? Better proceed with the original plan and send Chanyeol home once Haze has been stripped of his power and too weak to follow.”

Sehun was quiet for a moment as Baekhyun distracted himself by not-really-reading the pages of the open book in his lap. That library was the kind of place he loved and he couldn’t afford to be in often. He enjoyed the calm and the silence, almost as much as he liked the rows of books neatly ordered in shelves on the concave walls of the tunnel all around him, but quiet was just another thing he couldn’t regularly have. The universe he lived in was made of speed, blurred colors, desperation and pangs of pain in his chest.

“Are you okay?” Sehun asked.

Sehun, who was the only one who did not hate him. Chanyeol didn’t either, he believed. At least for then. The rest of the world just needed someone to blame.

_There’s two things I’m keeping from you. Two and a half, to be very honest._

“I’m a bit tired,” he said. “The worlds were separated by Soul Magic, and I was trying to find something here about that, but for all their secrecy the Blessed Order surely enjoy getting rid of their antique volumes of knowledge in exchange for coin.”

“That wasn’t what I meant when I asked,” protested Sehun, looking practically offended.

“I know that. And I’m grateful that you worry about me, but I’m ready for whatever comes. Readier than you, I think.” They were in a tunnel of books, and Baekhyun loved that. All the names around them, all the words, had been relevant enough to make it to history, to be kept and cherished and preserved. “So here’s how we do it: Chanyeol breaks this mirror tomorrow, and that’s the weakest Haze gets so we go hunt him and break the last looking glass.”

“I thought there were only four?”

“And then what about the mirror Haze’s been using to appear in our faces? He kept one for himself, besides the one I stole from him. So Chanyeol and I go and defeat him, and then he Travels across and breaks that mirror as he does. After that, it’ll be done.”

“Can’t I protest? Be opposed to this plan as everyone should be?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “You know I’m stubborn.”

Sehun was a darling boy, but as hard as he tried, there were things he wouldn’t understand. Chanyeol did, even if he didn’t realize, but he wouldn’t fully comprehend what was at stake if Baekhyun didn’t speak, and he didn’t want to. He thought about it as he left the library and Sehun behind and headed back to the tiny, closed space of tunnel the Blessed Order had given them as a shared guest room - Chanyeol was waiting for him to come clean, without pressuring him, just being _there_ , and the thing Baekhyun wanted the most, his own forbidden, hidden wish was to let it out.

Only two people had ever clearly seen to his perfectly constructed web of lies: Haze, who had told him he would turn him into the best cheater in the world and then Chanyeol, who had looked so certain while he told him he’d be the first to be honest, because someone had to. Revealing deep hidden truths was pretty much like getting naked, and he had always been used to covering up every inch of skin.

He knew that Chanyeol worked too much, that he tried to conceal it too, but that he was terrified. Such a brave boy he was, always wearing his heart up his sleeve. Baekhyun had watched him twitch in a restless sleep when they shared that old metro car, and he had watched him fight, and there were few people he could honestly admit he admired, but he was so glad he had met that one.

Haze had always been the bright flame, the grand genius with a plan for the world to change, but Chanyeol was the warm, steady fire. And as happened with all good things, warmth was underrated.

Even by him, once upon a time, but no more.

“I don’t know what Haze wants with Chanyeol, Sehunnie,” Baekhyun had admitted, just before leaving the library some minutes ago. “But whatever it is, sure as hell I’m not letting him have it.”

“I’m more than fine about you helping Chanyeol, but what about yourself?” Sehun had replied. Poor Sehun, always worrying about those he shouldn’t be concerned about.

“I am not relevant here.”

“Have you at least told him?”

Two things. Two secrets he was keeping. Two secrets and a half that he hid where it was safe. “What am I to tell him? I can’t. I am scared, you know? About what he’ll think of me.”

_Don’t you think Chanyeol would have liked my reflection better?_

Sehun didn’t understand. Chanyeol probably would, but he wouldn’t support him. And there were things he needed to do, because he could and because he had to. Despite being barely more than a hidden cave under the city’s core, and even though it was unpopulated and in ruins, there was something about the colored rugs and old pieces of parchment and books that he liked about the headquarters of the Blessed Order. It felt like a place he could have belonged in, once upon a time, had he not been an outcast for the world.

_But then what am I to do, right?_

The space of the tunnel the Blessed had given them to sleep was barely more than a corner separated from the rest of the corridor by a dark red curtain - probably the old quarters of some wizard who had already fallen to the tainted mist. It was simple and not especially comfortable, but Baekhyun had loved the simplicity of the cushions of the floor, and Chanyeol had been too tired to even protest before he had collapsed over them and started snoring. There was something warm about returning to that scene, and he felt stupidly shy as he opened the curtain to walk into their narrow shared space.

His pulse was drumming in his ears but, just like that, it stopped, and cold swept under his skin.

The room at the other side of the curtain was empty, Chanyeol’s side of the cushion bed unmade but already cold. And Baekhyun knew that something like that shouldn’t be necessary alarming; he had been awake and up past midnight too, but he hadn’t seen Chanyeol outside - not in the library, not in the corridors, not anywhere - and his black guitar case wasn’t in the place against the wall where he had last left it.

Swallowing past the knot in his throat, he turned to leave. It was then that he heard the scream.

\--

The song and the noise were calling Chanyeol.

It was as it had been years ago, when he was a small kid in a black suit meant for a funeral. He had dreamed about that a thousand times and the nightmare, as everything else, had come back, strong and clear, and irresistible pull. So he woke up.

He wasn’t in his room that time, but in that strange alcove made of mismatched cushions and blankets, buried deep in the core of a black, black mountain. That meant he didn’t know the way to the voice, but its whispers were there to guide him anyway, in a part of his mind where he couldn’t block them.

_Come meet me, will you? Let the Murder Melody in. I’ve been training you for this._

The corridors outside his room were empty, but his naked feet made almost no noise on the rugs that covered the floor as he grabbed his guitar case and stepped out. A crack came out under the door of blankets that separated the library from the rest of the tunnel, but he ignored it, going straight for the only proper door in the place: the steel gates at the far bottom.

Kyungsoo-the-librarian had said that only one without taint in his veins could walk through those doors, but Chanyeol’s rot wasn’t in his body but somewhere in his mind, where it could not be traced, and so the polished steel parted in two to let him in as soon as he touched it and issued the command for it to open.

The room beyond was small and round, a sanctuary in the form of a circular cave dug from the stone. Water trickled down the walls, purifying, and mist clung to his legs, swirling as he walked. The mirror was in a raised platform in the very center of the room, a tall thing framed in silver and with a glass so black as the mountain around them.

At the other side of it and dressed in pristine white stood the Exalted.

“So you came,” he said. “To fulfill your duty. To play a song for me. What a good, good child you are.”

Chanyeol knew he had to. Maybe not exactly like that, but he had to. The song made of remnants of noise was telling him to, and the nightmare was moving his strings, but he didn’t understand why Haze would want him to do the only thing that would destroy him. And still, he didn’t fight. Strangely detached from the scene he was the center of, he watched his body kneel and take his guitar of of its case, the lights so bright in the darkness when he turned it on and placed his fingers on the strings.

“You want me to break the mirrors for you,” he said, because even in his nightmares he got to keep his voice. Usually.

At the other side of the looking glass, Haze smiled. “It’s not optimal, but it’s been convenient. Breaking these mirrors can destroy me, but it can also enthrone me. Grant me my wish once and for all. So I’ve been training you, waiting for you, since Baekhyun brought you to me.”

Chanyeol’s fingers pressed on the frets of his guitar, and the music took shape over the noise, one note bleeding into another, chord after chord. It was his melody, but it was twisted, wrong. He wanted to wake up, but he could not.

“You have a wish?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Don’t we all?” Haze gave him a wolfish grin. His hair was pushed back again - he looked so different from what Chanyeol had ever been. “I had a wish, a wish for happiness. But what is worse than craving for the greater good and realizing that neither the world nor you are strong enough to turn your vision into reality?”

Chanyeol uselessly tried to shake his head. His body was not his, his fingers danced on the strings. He needed to wake up, but his brain had been unwired. “Breaking these mirrors will kill you,” he said. “That’s what Baekhyun thinks.”

“And he’s not wrong. He’s rather clever, for a replacement. But of course, he’s more egoistic than selfless - he does things for the sense of forgiveness that they’ll bring _him_ , rather than the welfare of those around him, and so he doesn’t think as much as he should.”

“You don’t know him.”

“Ah, but I do and he’s weak. Impulsive. He realized that my power dwells in intact mirrors while you get strength from the act of breaking them, but he failed to see that our souls are one and the same, linked by the thread of our magic. You might be immune to Soul Magic, but you’re not free of my influence inside you. We have a bond, Park Chanyeol, and I’m the one in your head, the reflection that knows how to control it while you toss and turn in your sleep.”

“What do you want that bond for?” Chanyeol asked. He was barely conscious of the fact that he should be alarmed and scared, pinching himself awake and going for Baekhyun, but his limbs were heavy his eyes blurring anything else that wasn’t Haze’s scornful face.

“Because of your world. The energy in it. I need to open a gate to get it and you’re the key I require. A whole soul, both sides of the coin. So let the Soul Melody play louder, make the Murder Melody rise.”

Chanyeol’s face remained neutral. His fingers hurt. His song was so loud, so twisted, so broken. _Wake me up._ “There’s something I don’t understand,” he whispered. The black mirror was splintering, but there were no cracks on Haze’s face. The crystal surface trembled and undulated around him, but he remained still, a marble statue. “I understand the Soul part, but why call my song Murder Melody if the objective is not to kill but to control?”

Haze chuckled. “My lovely, innocent, boy. It was my personal choice, and I named it that way because we are murdering a person. Don’t you have any idea of who it is?”

Mr. Huang. Colonel Suho. His mother. Baekhyun. “I won’t let you.”

The mirror cracked. Haze’s smile turned wolfish. “Ah, but how will you stop it when this whole thing is about killing you?”

The glass in front of him broke, shards flying everywhere. They dug into the skin of his arms, his cheek, his neck, biting so deep that he screamed. There was noise in his head, a shriek like a banshee’s scream, that came from the mirror and took hold in his brain, cutting the last threads of consciousness like it was biting them off, tearing skin and soul away as he went.

That was the moment when he woke up. That was the instant when he found himself in his coat of cushions, with Baekhyun staring over him and asking if he was okay, and he lied. But the world was switching off, blurring, and he couldn’t register himself doing it, but he heard his own voice screaming. He had to be dreaming, he had to be, he had to be; Haze had control when he slept but not anywhere else, so it couldn’t be. He didn’t want to listen, but his voice was in his head, and he knew Haze couldn’t kill him, wouldn’t kill him, but that all had never been about actual, physical death.

 _Let me in,_ Haze had repeated, and he was in.

 _It’s about controlling or getting controlled._ And Chanyeol couldn’t move.

 _You can either submit or have complete dominion._ Two parts of one soul, one weak reflection.

And it was him. It couldn’t be him. No, no, no, no.

He couldn’t see. He couldn’t see. He was falling.

The world had turned white. The beep in his ears wouldn’t stop.

And then there was silence.

\--

Baekhyun was the third person to arrive, his throat raw and his chest so cold it burned. Glyphs had appeared in the metallic surface of the door leading to the inner sanctum, fire red traced over silver. He had taught himself to read the symbols, could recognize the traces of a seal - for protection against evil. Corruption.

The screams, in a voice he recognized, were coming from the other side.

“What’s going on here?” he exclaimed, rushing towards the door.

Someone grabbed him by the arms, keeping him still even though he tried to fight. Sehun.

“No one is allowed to step into that room, Byun,” said Kyungsoo. He was standing in front of the closed gates, and Baekhyun couldn’t see his face from where he was, but he knew him well enough to recognize inflexibility in his voice. “The taint has invaded the inner sanctum.”

Chanyeol should have been sleeping. The boy he knew would have waited until he was told to walk into the mirror room. He didn’t like to use his powers to the point it made him sick. He didn’t like confronting Haze, or fighting if he could avoid it. Chanyeol wouldn’t have gone by his own will.

Chanyeol wouldn’t get himself trapped when no one could help him.

Chanyeol wouldn’t be screaming.

Chanyeol shouldn’t be screaming.

He had been overworking himself but he could endure it.

He was okay when he had left.

If he hadn’t left—

“Haze!” Baekhyun called out loud. “Haze has him. He did something to him, he’s still doing it right now! We have to help him, we have to take him out of that room!”

“He won’t be able to walk out until his body is free of taint. If it ever is,” replied Kyungsoo, voice neutral. “And none of us will be walking in there!”

“For fuck’s sake, shut up! Don’t you ever get tired of being this self-righteous when you and your people never do a thing to help? Because I, for once, am fucking done with you!” Sehun was still holding him in place, but he had nothing to do against someone with so little to lose. He called his own broken Blessing, absorbing the traces of white mist from the air into his system, and his chest hurt like an overheated engine but the light came, pure and blinding. It was too bright in the semi darkness, and came too fast for Sehun to close his eyes, so the boy grunted, hurt and blinded, and Baekhyun elbowed him with all his strength and broke free. He had left his cane at Jongdae’s store as a sign of good faith to the Blessed, but now he wished he had brought it so he could stab Kyungsoo in the guts with it.

“Librarian Do, what’s happening?” Luhan’s voice called. He was rushing towards them across the tunnel, followed by three Blessed more, all sleepy and pale and willingly ignorant.

Kyungsoo simply snapped his fingers and the patch of stone between the upcoming group and the door rose up like a wall, blocking their way and leaving Sehun, Baekhyun and himself locked in stone in front to the door. “I am not risking the lives of my people to the Exalted’s miasma,” he stated.

At the other side of the gates, Chanyeol kept screaming. Baekhyun bit his lip so hard he was sure it drew blood. “Seriously, fuck you.” His light flickered under his skin, useless, but he pushed Kyungsoo away anyway and pressed his hands against the hot glyphs on the door.

Issue a command. All that magitec doors required was for the Blessed to issue a command, but instead of opening beneath his palms, the burning steel charred the skin of his hands, making him cry out in pain.

He couldn’t cross the gates.

“Chanyeol!” he called.

He could almost make out the words that were being screamed at the other side. _No, no, no,_ like a litany, a terrible cadence. _No, oh god, no,_ he thought as well.

“ _Stars_ ,” Sehun cursed, going for him again, trying to take him away from the door.

“Pray to those stars for him to vanish the taint inside him,” Kyungsoo said, so matter of factly that Baekhyun would have killed him.

“Chanyeol!” he called out again. He was on his own at the other side of the door, but he wasn’t alone. He wouldn’t allow it. “Whatever he’s doing to you, don’t let him win! Wake up, you hear me? Wake up!”

There was another long, agonizing scream.

And then, his heartbeat and silence.

—

_“Wake up! Chanyeol, wake up!”_

_The sunlight had dyed his eyelids red, which made his eyes itch, but he still felt too comfortable to open them. Was five minutes more too much to ask for a boy as busy as he was? He had just finished his exams, he needed a little break for the effort._

_“Seriously, Chanyeol, wake up! We’re in trouble.”_

_Chanyeol opened one eye, only because he was feeling merciful that morning. His room came into focus, the window open to let the early spring air in. The dreamcatcher his mother had hung from the frame on his birthday was still there, hanging stupidly because he always forgot to take it off - he had been forgetting to do so for months now - but he had put it there to indulge her after she had been charged way too much for it at a fair and he was starting to find it_ endearing.

_Oh, well._

_“What time is it?” he muttered._

_Right when he was thinking about endearing things he loved, Baekhyun’s messy mop of ash-brown hair appeared in his field of vision - along with the rest of him. He always looked so soft in the mornings, with his dark eyes still clouded by sleep and his skin so warm. Coincidentally, he was wearing one of Chanyeol’s old t-shirts now (in retaliation for Chanyeol stealing_ his _hoodie to go out the night before), which was one of his favorite things in the world._

_“What do you think? Noon,” Baekhyun replied, looking conveniently upset._

_“Hey, and why the frown? I thought we only had to meet Sehun and the guys for rehearsal at like… eight in the evening or something? We’re up just in the time for lunch.”_

_Baekhyun punched him in the shoulder. “Let me remind you that you bribed me into your place last night by telling me there would be an Overwatch marathon this morning. Ranked games. You spent the time you should have dedicated to_ me _, carrying_ you _in ranked, sleeping.”_

 _“We could have done that_ if _we had gone to sleep earlier last night. Which we didn’t, by the way, because of you.” Chanyeol raised his eyebrows at him, pretending to be shocked, and reproachful, and maybe a bit of both. “I have the stamina of a regular man, Byun, even if you are superhuman or something. Everything hurts, you know, I need to rest and recover and all before I’m all yours again.”_

_The little fucker had the nerve to look so proud of himself. “You’re whining.”_

_“I don’t whine. I’m a Gryffindor.”_

_“Have you ever paid attention to the Gryffindors in the Harry Potter books? Seriously, Park.”_

_The world was such a beautiful place, frowning Baekhyun and all. Especially when they were much more happy than angry and were wearing his shirt._

_“If you want_ me _to carry_ you _at Overwatch or any other online game of your choosing, you only need to ask nicely,” he said, pulling from Baekhyun’s arm until the other boy was practically on him on the bed, close enough to be kissed. Baekhyun’s lips parted against his as soon as they touched, so soft and so warm and so perfect. “So tell me something,” he whispered when they parted, keeping the boy oh so close. “Am I supposed to be in trouble because you’ve had to cancel our Overwatch marathon? Is that the reason?”_

_Baekhyun’s smile turned mischievous. “Not really,” he said against his ear, moving to kiss the soft skin below. “But do you really want to know?”_

_“Well, I guess?” Chanyeol shivered. “I suppose? Maybe? I always want to know.”_

_That was when he heard the knocks on his door, and Baekhyun_ chuckled _against his skin. The bastard._

_“Son, are you awake?” his mother’s voice said. “Can I come in?”_

_Chanyeol’s eyes opened wide. If he had invited Baekhyun home the night before it had been precisely because his mother was supposed to be working in a long turn until late in the afternoon. Or so he thought. It should be so, because he had checked her schedule carefully… or that was what he believed, at least._

_“Hey mom,” he replied, voice shaky as a chuckling Baekhyun buried his head in the crook of his neck. “And actually you can’t. I’m, um, naked.”_

_Which he more or less was. On top of having Baekhyun there, of course, shaking like he was going to burst out laughing at every second. He was wondering what he could do, and if shoving his boyfriend and all of his stuff into the closet would be a viable option when the door fell open. “Come on, darling, I brought you into this world, it’s not like—_ Oh _.”_

_Baekhyun sat up on the bed and actually beamed. “Good morning, Mrs. Park.”_

_“Ah, hi Baekhyunnie, did you stay for the night?”_

_“Yup! It had been a while since I did, so.”_

_It had, in fact, been a while since Chanyeol’s mother had run into Baekhyun and him being in the same room, and last time hadn’t been as bad as that. And he had imagined it could happen, eventually, but he hadn’t expected Baekhyun to be so natural about the whole situation and his mother of all people to be okay with it. Although he should have. Baekhyun was Baekhyun and his mother had always liked him._

_“I’m happy to see you are getting along. I had almost lost hope with this one until you appeared, but I see he’s not a total lost case. Now that you’re here, do you want a cup of coffee?”_

_Chanyeol hid himself under his rumpled blankets. “Mom, please.”_

_“Do you have lemon tea?” Baekhyun asked, standing up. “I’ve been having americano lately because of exams, but if I can avoid that…”_

_"Of course, darling.”_

_“Well, let me get my pants and I’ll join you soon. Deal?” The door clicked closed and Chanyeol stuck out his head from his fortress of blankets. “You coming?” Baekhyun asked while he got his discarded jeans from the floor._

_“You’re ganging up with her against me?”_

_“Just accepting an offer for invigorating drinks, Chanyeol. It’s a much better option than blushing and acting like someone just walked on you having sex.”_

_“Oh, god, Byun. She actually didn’t—”_

_“Join us in five, okay?”_

_Baekhyun winked an eye at him and left his bedroom with his old t-shirt still on. Chanyeol supposed he should be at least a little frustrated by the whole situation, but the truth was he felt too happy to care. His exams had gone well, he was still better than Baekhyun at Overwatch, he had been promoted to store manager at his videogame shop part-time job, his band was doing great and his mother and friends liked his boyfriend._

_He got up, fishing his jeans from the floor and deciding for a clean shirt and hoodie from his closet - his mother was at home after all. The air was still a bit chilly, despite the spring setting in, so he walked to his window with the intention of closing it._

_The street was bursting with life down below, something that he had always liked. The city was busy no matter the time of the day, cars going up and down the street and pedestrians talking, barely bigger than ants from that spot._

There’s no park, _he thought._ No frozen fountain. No silence.

_He shook his head, frowning, and pushed the window closed before heading out._

_Baekhyun was already sitting with his mother in the kitchen, Chanyeol’s favorite Pikachu mug between his nimble fingers, filled with probably tea. Sunlight came through the windows and casted his face in light._

_The world was such a beautiful place._

_Full of happiness, without a trace of pain._

_“You’ve stolen my cup,” Chanyeol observed._

_“Indulge me,” the other boy said. “I’d ask you to share, but I haven’t come this far just to give up half of my obligatory good morning drink, I’m afraid.”_

_“Nah, I need my whole cup of caffeine, don’t worry about that.”_

_His mother’s gaze travelled from him to Baekhyun, and then to him again. “Aren’t your exams over, darling? Didn’t you sleep well tonight?” Chanyeol stopped where he was at the door and tried to smile. As naturally as he could. “Do I have to give you the speech about safe intercourse again?”_

_“Oh my god, mom!” His mother seemed to love embarrassing him. Exactly like that. At least, Baekhyun laughed out loud. The amount of chill that guy had seemed to be endless._

_“What, am I not allowed to ask if my son has been using protection?”_

_“Mom!”_

_“Don’t worry, he has been.”_

_“Even for oral?”_

_“MOM!”_

_Chanyeol had to cover his eyes with his hands, hoping that at least that would hide the fact that he wanted to lock himself in his room and never, ever, come out. He had never asked for a mother that made him felt awkward, or for a boyfriend that was completely unashamed in certainly weird situations, but he guessed he was lucky to have them both in his life after all._

_Lucky._

_Happy._

_The world was such a beautiful place._

_“I need to know. Better safe than sorry, son,” his mother was saying. “Bad things could happen if you’re not careful enough. You could be sick. Or your demons could get to you.”_

Ah?

_Chanyeol looked from between his fingers. His mother’s hair, that had been neatly combed back a second ago, was falling onto her eyes._

_“Mom?” he asked. When he blinked, she was normal again._

_“Are you okay, Park? You look unwell,” Baekhyun asked, looking all adorable in his old shirt, his hair still a mess._

_“I guess. I am.”_

_He could hear a faint song close by, like one of their neighbors was playing music and the sound filtered through the walls. He didn’t really want to focus on that, but the more he did, the more he felt something was_ off. _Baekhyun looked messy and relaxed, like he always did (like Chanyeol wanted him to be) but if he stared hard enough he could see a second boy overlapping with that one. A Baekhyun with his left eye covered, dressed in a perfectly pressed suit._

_“Darling, you look pale,” his mother said, clearly worried._

_Chanyeol took one step back, and then another, until he was back in the corridor. The walls were white, all white, no crosses drawn at all._

_“When did we paint the house?” he asked. “Or change the windows?”_

_“Darling, what are you saying?” His mother looked so worried, so scared. “We never changed the windows, and the walls… You painted them together with your father and sister last month. Don’t you remember that?”_

_That seemed logical. He remembered that, in his mind and in his heart. But it was not true, it couldn’t be. “My father and sister are dead.”_

_He looked up again and saw his mother with her hair falling all over her face. Baekhyun with an eyepatch under his perfectly styled hair. And crosses in the hallway, and the windows painted black._

_The world was such a beautiful place._

_The world was such an ugly place._

_He was seeing two realities at the same time, and he wanted to forget one, as much as he craved to live in the other. He took another step back._

_“What’s wrong? Come play with me,” Baekhyun said._

_“Give in into what you desire,” his mother added. And it was her voice, but it wasn’t her. His mother, as he knew her, would never say that._

_He could still hear that faint song, such a terrible mess of notes and chords. He didn’t like it, he was afraid to tune himself into it, but the clearer it was, the more the world around him unraveled._

_“You should choose to be happy.”_

_“You should choose your life to be painless.”_

_“Because the world is such an ugly place.”_

_“But you can stay here and believe it’s beautiful.”_

_He was Park Chanyeol, the unluckiest boy in the world, and he could close his ears to the music and stay in a place where his mother was sane and Baekhyun trusted and wanted him. He wanted it so much that his chest ached for it, and that was the reason it all was being shown to him._

_That was the core of the liar’s game, the true meaning of the Murder Melody, and he needed to choose if he would listen or not._

_Listen or not._

_“Give in, darling, give in.”_

_Chanyeol was so scared. He closed his eyes. “Haze.”_

_He grabbed the discordant threads of the song in his heart and turned them into a scream. And then, like a mirror, the illusion cracked._

_\--_

Chanyeol was back in the white room, body against a glass-cold wall, Haze’s pale right hand on his neck and cheeks wet with tears. He couldn't breath, he was suffocating, and everything he could see was his reflection's dark, dark eyes on his.

They were in Chanyeol's mind. He wasn't dreaming anymore but trapped in his own brain. He was scared.

“You're a fool,” Haze hissed, keeping him in place while he cut his supply of air. Chanyeol needed to move, he needed to resist but his limbs were not responding and his lungs burned. “You should have stayed in the life I created for you. You should have accepted my mercy.”

“No,” whispered Chanyeol. “No.” His own fingers closed around Haze’s, fingernails digging in skin. “I won't let you destroy me. I will never allow you to use my powers, or my body, or anything that's mine for your big, fat lie.”

The smile on Haze's face was more of a grimace than a smirk, a clean-cut in his pale, familiar face. “Don't deceive yourself,” he whispered, moving close to do so over his ear while Chanyeol's hands found purchase on his chest. He breathed in. “If you had the power to remove all the ugliness in this world, wouldn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t,” murmured Chanyeol. “I _can’t_.”

“Ah, but it can be done. The most wonderful thing about Soul Magic is that it affects the mind, the emotions. If there’s a feeling that it’s not worthy of being in the human psyche, people like you and I have the possibility to erase it. So it doesn’t hunt mankind anymore.”

Chanyeol shook his head. He could breathe, he could move if he tried. Haze might still be the powerful one, but they were in _his_ brain. “You’re not saving the world; you’re breaking it. You’re making people sick, both in my city and in yours.”

“Because I don’t have enough energy. Don’t you see? I need more power, certain things need to be sacrificed for others to grow. And you know that, deep in your heart, you understand. Because I am the same thing you are. I know the things you crave for. And I gave them to you and you were happy.”

Taking a shaky breath, Chanyeol closed his eyes. He was scared, so scared. He was ashamed of the things he wanted, and afraid of the things he didn’t want. “No, you are the one who doesn’t understand. I may want all that, deep down, but it’s not _real_. And it doesn’t matter how you change my perception, or how much you deceive or play with my mind, it still won’t be. It will never be, not like this.”

Rage swirled under Haze’s face, like curls of miasma, thick white instead of black. “The world will change if I command it to. It will, starting with you.”

 _Desperate, aren’t you?_ Chanyeol’s tightened his grip, and Haze’s smirk faltered when the boy pushed his hand down, twisting it between them. He would have laughed. He wanted to laugh. And he did, humorlessly, as the walls of the white room around them trembled, as if stricken by an earthquake. “You know, there’s a thing I’ve gotten about all of your speeches. No matter how hard you try to convince me, when it comes to you versus me, and when it comes to my life, this all is not about controlling or being controlled. It’s about me keeping my own mind in check and fighting it every day. And yes, I am unlucky, and afraid, but you know what? I am about to face the fear I’ve been running away from.”

“You will never get it,” Haze hissed. “You’re weak and ignorant. You must be eliminated.”

“No.” They were in Chanyeol’s mind, as and such he commanded the white walls to crack and fall, like they were made of glass and he was smashing them with a hammer. A crack appeared at the corner of Haze’s left eye, cutting hardened skin as it travelled down. There had been neither sound nor noised in that closed space, but Chanyeol was starting to hear the music. “I might be the weakest reflection, but I won’t be letting you in. I don’t want you in my nightmares anymore.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Haze exclaimed, as Chanyeol’s hand closed on the front of his white coat and he was pulled in, eye to eye and forehead to forehead.

“Ah, but I do,” the boy said. Haze’s face was cracking, the walls were crumbling. And there was darkness beyond, and Chanyeol embraced it. He still wanted to laugh, and to cry. “You’re so alone.”

Haze’s eyes opened wide. “You don’t understand. My world is—”

His mouth fell open. His face cracked. And Chanyeol grabbed onto the pain in his chest as he pushed his conscience forward and into him.

\--

_The world was such a beautiful place, and Chanyeol was special._

_He was meant to do great things, or so he had been told. From birth, he had been trained to know his powers and to control them, so he could bring pride to Insomnia and the Prosperan Empire, to be the flame of the world both in peace and war._

_He could Travel through mirrors, but he was never allowed. “You are not the one who will have to, if the need arises. You’re too precious, darling,” his mother always said. So he turned into Soul Magic and noise instead, and the things he could do with them._

_He could made the happy sad, and turn grief into happiness. He could calm the angry, and solve conflict with a simple gesture and a stare, and a second of noise directed into the brain. He was loved and respected, he was the new Exalted of Insomnia, and everyone wanted to see him and to talk to him. It was tiresome, but Kyungsoo and Sehun were there for him once the crews went back home, and his father always told him the stories of past heroes before he went to bed, which made his days worthwhile._

_“You will be the next one, you’ll see,” he always told him. “The next great hero of Insomnia. Our savior if the need arises.”_

_And Chanyeol had believed. He was special, yes, and being special was so hard sometimes, but he was happy overall._

_—_

_The official sources said it had been an accident, but Chanyeol didn’t believe it._

_If it had been, his mother wouldn’t have been so concerned about Chanyeol’s personal car exploding, even though he hadn’t been in. If it had been, she would have grieved Chanyeol’s father and sister much more, instead forbidding her remaining son to go to their funeral and locking him in._

_If it had been, Chanyeol would have been allowed to go out and wouldn’t be surrounded by guards who didn’t touch him and didn’t talk to him._

_Chanyeol just wanted to mourn. He wanted to fix things. His father had always told him that he was special, a genius and a hero, and still he hadn’t been able to bring him and Yoora back to life. Doing that was out of his reach, he had been told. It was something that even the Exalted couldn’t do._

_So he had cried alone, hoping the pain would pass, and had cried more when it hadn’t. He had stayed awake at night and tried to conjure that damn feeling out of his head, but it hadn’t left._

_Soul Mages couldn’t be affected by Soul Magic, not by the regular kind. And he wasn’t strong enough. Not to help others, nor to ease his own pain._

_What a useless hero he was._

_—_

_Manipulating the minds of his guards was as simple as playing with lifeless toys. He had manipulated the noise, shaped it and turned into something they couldn’t unhear, and when he had had their minds in his hands, he had issued the command._

_“Take me to a mirror.”_

_Mirrors were forbidden for him as he wasn’t allowed to leave Insomnia, but he had never wanted a door, only a window. He had been lost in hopelessness until he had remembered his lessons and seen a flicker of light._

_There were two worlds, everyone had a reflection. The balance was there, but perhaps something could be done. Maybe if he intervened he could adjust it. Make it all better._

_So he hummed to the mirror, and someone at the other side replied with a song._

_A boy his age, with his same face, black hair and huge, dark eyes. His reflection, unknowing, and scared and so normal it hurt._

_“Are your father and sister alive?” he had asked, and he had wanted to curse when his other self had nodded, but he had clung to his thread of hope anyway. He hadn’t been able to save his family in his world, but perhaps he would be able to do so somewhere else. That would make it better: he would be happier if his reflection was. He would play the hero for another version of his dad, and he would save the day. “You have to listen to me. Your father will die. Your sister will die. It’s about the balance and you have to avoid it.”_

_His reflection had looked so scared - so stupid, so useless - and the only thing had done had been closing the link between the mirrors and running away._

_Chanyeol had thought that he would still help, perhaps, but the next time he had opened his window to see him, that silly boy had been dressed for a funeral._

The world is such an ugly place, _Chanyeol had thought, and perhaps special people didn’t deserve to be happy._

_His other self seemed eager to run away from who he was and from the power that ringed in his veins, like he strived to be ordinary. And they were not the same person, of course, Chanyeol wasn’t as weak as that reflection of his, but they both shared the core of their souls, and he didn’t want the other boy to forget it._

_Soul Mages couldn’t be affected by Soul Magic, that was the cardinal rule. But the reflections of Mirror Travelers were linked, even when they stood a world apart._

_So he didn’t tell anyone, not when everyone wanted the Exalted to forget that another side existed, but he slipped into his other self’s dreams and reminded him of his sins in the shape of nightmares._

_—_

_Normal people had to live in the world as it was, no matter how unfair or painful, but Chanyeol was allowed to shape it._

_Not everything, of course: he was not a regular Blessed and thus he had no element to control. Freezing water, or to setting wood aflame, or to making seeds grow on the earth were easy tasks for the other chosen few and, even though they were impossible for him, there were other things he could do. He was a master of emotion, he had control over the human mind, and he could not create forests or destroy shores with tidal waves, but he could reshape and rewire._

_He sensed discomfort, distress, anger and sadness like every person he crossed paths with was sending him a signal. He couldn’t do a thing to make his own pain disappear, and he hadn’t been able to fix the other world, but he was starting to think that the other side of the mirror and his stupid, childish reflection weren’t worth his while, and so he should start helping the ones that mattered. In Insomnia, the city he was meant to rule._

_So he started his crusade. He did it with a servant girl first, digging deep in her mind until he uprooted the source of her grief - pain over a family lost in the same incident that had taken the lives of his father and sister as well. She didn’t need that, and he erased it, but his technique wasn’t perfect and she turned into crystal._

_She had been smiling when she died, at least, her lips curved up in the face of a sculpture carved in glass._

_“So a failure, eh? This is more difficult that I thought it’d be.”_

_He made progress, steadily. The advantage of being locked in ‘until the authorities deemed that it was okay for him to go out safely’ was that everything happened behind closed walls. So what if one or two servants and soldiers disappeared once in a while? What if others had drastic changes of humor? It wouldn’t be the prince; it couldn’t be the prince: he was too young and still grieving._

_He perfected his technique. He purged the darkness and the anger and the grief off them and watched the dark miasma leaving their bodies once his job was done. All the bad things, disappearing. All the feelings that made people suffer, off and away._

_Among all people, he had expected at least his friends to understand when he finally gathered the courage to show them. He called one of his guards, the last afternoon they came to his mansion to play, and then performed the extraction. He made him happy. Euphoric._

_“Isn’t it wonderful?” he asked, smiling. “He is not sad anymore.”_

_Sehun was still too young, but Kyungsoo had always been a clever kid. He had been coming less and less to play, burdened by his own training as the next librarian for the Blessed Order, but he was a wizard too, and Chanyeol had taken for granted that he would understand._

_Only he didn’t._

_“What’s wrong with the mist?” he said, watching the black fog that came out from the guard’s body, and ushering Sehun to hide behind him. “What have you done to that man? Why is he laughing like that?”_

_“It still needs to be perfected, but I made him happy,” Chanyeol tried to explain. He was so satisfied with his improvements, and he wanted Kyungsoo to be proud, but his friend draped his arms around Sehun’s shape and stepped back._

_Away from_ him.

_“You have to undo that. That mist is wrong. That man is wrong. Undo that.”_

_“What? No! He’s better now!”_

_He tried to explain, he really did, but Kyungsoo was looking at him like he didn’t know him, and he felt the bitter taste of sadness and betrayal in his tongue. His friends were corrupted too, it seemed, damaged by evil feelings as the rest of the world was._

_“Chanyeol, whatever it is you’ve done, we have to tell your mom. She’s a healer, she’ll fix it.”_

_“No, you don’t understand. Let me show you!”_

_Extracting the corruption of pain from Kyungsoo seemed the way to go, but his friend cursed when he saw him coming. With a flick of his hand, he made the earth between himself and Chanyeol rise, sending the boy stumbling back with a shocked scream._

_He didn’t want that. Kyungsoo didn’t want his help. He would leave with Sehun, he knew, and none of his friends would come back._

_Chanyeol wanted to cry, but his own tears were something he couldn’t erase so he held them in._

_His plan was not for them, but he had to keep going._

_“So be it,” he whispered. “So be it.”_

_—_

_He unwillingly turned his mother sick._

_That was what happened with all of his failed experiments, with the people who became happier but not quite: they forgot grief and pain, they laughed and smiled and danced, but eventually they lost track of who they were, and their conscience faded, and their skin started to harden and splinter and turn to glass._

_Such a thing happened because he was still young and inexperienced. He had neither the skill nor the power, but that also meant he needed time and subjects to practice, and there was nothing he could do if some of them got sick or died. It was a necessary evil for the greater good, but his mother didn’t understand that._

_“Chanyeol, Kyungsoo told him. You’ve been tainted by miasma, son. You need to come with me. We’ll take care of you, all right? Just leave us in charge of everything.”_

_She had come with more people - guards. She had brought magitec chains. She wanted to restrain him, stop him, treat him like a madman. It hurt that she thought like that, it hurt that she was acting upon it. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, so bad and so sharp, and so he used his full strength on her._

_She was a powerful healer, but he was the Exalted of Insomnia and he won the fight. But she was sick, her skin hardening by the second, and she wanted to live so she ran._

_His mother left. The service left. The guards he had no mindpower to control went along with them._

_He heard, days after, that his own mother had declared the title of Exalted null and had declared martial law in Insomnia. Another betrayal to his personal little list, another person who had been dear to him and that had stabbed him in the back in the end._

_He still had the Exalted’s mansion however. He still had his useless title and his growing strength, and he wouldn’t give those up, so he covered his headquarters in black mist and buried himself inside._

_\--_

_The Blessed sent him a young man by the time Chanyeol was fifteen, a person by the name of Zhang Yixing, a gifted scholar who specialized in the balance between worlds._

_“You might not know, Mr. Park, but the way you are using your power is affecting the bond between this side of the looking glass and the other,” he explained to him. “According to the research we have conducted, your Mirror Traveler abilities are influencing your use of Soul Magic.”_

_“What does that mean?” asked Chanyeol. He didn’t like that man: he seemed barely older than him by one or two years, but still smelled like old parchment and looked at him like he distrusted him - which he did, Chanyeol could feel it in the noise of his soul. The Blessed had allegedly sent him as a peace offering, because every wizard in town was part of their silly Order by default, but the Blessed wanted him to fall, and, as kind as his face was, that man was no exception._

_“What I intend to say is that you are apparently drawing energy from the bond between worlds. You require too much energy for your… Soul Magic practices, Mr. Park, and what you do affects the welfare of people at the other side of the looking glass.”_

_“I don’t care much about the other side of the looking glass. They have a world full of energy and barely no Blessed to use it, and even the ones who should be able to are too weak to do anything else but whine. Let them rot if they’re suffering, I won’t change my plans for their sake.”_

_Zhang Yixing pursed his lips. He wasn’t happy, but it wasn’t like Chanyeol minded. The Blessed Order always spoke a lot, but they never helped. Kyungsoo was one of them, and he was just another traitor. “I think you don’t understand the gravity of this problem. If the balance is seriously affected, both worlds will be in danger. I, representing the Blessed Order, have come here to tell you to stop this madness before it is too late.”_

_That’s what each one of them wanted. For him to stop. Every arrogant, ignorant soul. “And what happens if I don’t want to?” he asked._

_“Then, you will be stopped by force.”_

_Ah, so it came down to that. The Blessed Order, holy inquisition of Insomnia, whose members always chose to impose, to command._

_Chanyeol wouldn’t be commanded._

_“Oh, I tell you now that I don’t plan on stopping,” he said, chuckling. Zhang Yixing looked so uncomfortable, like he was about to tell him off again. Chanyeol decided that he couldn’t stand him, nor the people he represented. He needed to teach them a lesson, something severe enough, so they wouldn’t come back. Something special. “But well, now that you have come so far, why don’t you deliver them a message? Something simple enough for them to understand. Will you do that?”_

_“That is not the reason I have come here for. Mr. Park—”_

_“Tell me, messenger man, are you left or right handed?”_

_Yixing blinked at him from his seat before Chanyeol’s desk. “Right handed, but—”_

_“So the right one it is,” the boy said, raising the noise up until Zhang Yixing’s mind was his to control. The thing that had always marveled him about Soul Magic was how easy it was to use, how naturally it came to him when he called it. “Listen to me, will you? I want you to go back to your Blessed bastards and tell them that I’m not giving in. I am not the scared boy they knew, I am stronger now, the most powerful wizard in the world. I am not Park Chanyeol anymore, you see? I’ve chosen a new name for myself, and you’ll tell them to remember. I am Lord Haze now, I am the Exalted of Insomnia, and I am going to reshape the world.”_

_“Insomnia will not allow it,” Zhang Yixing said, because of course he couldn’t move but he was still using his capacity to speak. Chanyeol was partially amused, but there were still things he needed to prove._

_“I don’t care what Insomnia allows. It’s not like you can stop me. If you wrong me, I’ll get you all, one by one, and I’ll make you_ want _to destroy each other.”_

_“You wouldn’t,” Yixing replied. “You’re not powerful enough for that.”_

_“Do you want to try? Because that was part of the plan.” With a sigh, he took his favorite knife from his sheath in his belt and placed it between Yixing and himself on the desk. “Tell me, mister messenger, do you feel like chopping your right hand off?”_

_The man’s face turned white. “With a knife? His Exalted Majesty, with all due respect…”_

_“Am I the ‘Exalted Majesty’ now?” Chanyeol turned the noise up, dived deep into Zhang Yixing’s mind and reshaped, changed, built feelings anew. Fabricating desire was simple, human nature was designed to_ want _, even if whatever it was they craved for wasn’t good for them._

_The knife still rested on the desk. Zhang Yixing was smiling when Chanyeol - Haze - looked at him again._

_“So what now, mister messenger? Do you want to chop your right hand off?” he asked, his voice so sweet._

_Zhang Yixing nodded, eager as a child, and grabbed the knife._

_—_

_Baekhyun came across the mirror when Haze was seventeen._

_No one visited anymore, not by their own will, but Haze had been alone in the drawing room of his mansion when the surface of the mirror undulated and a black haired boy fell from the glass to the floor with a muffled ‘ouch.’ Haze walked towards him as he stood, reading the noise in his mind for any sign of defiance. Surprisingly, he found none._

_“You are a member of the Blessed Order,” he said._

_“Ah, well, I guess I am, just because every wizard in this city is. Unless they throw you out, like they did to you.”_

_Haze blinked down at the boy, genuinely surprised. He was a good-looking kid, with the kind of boyish, mischievous charm that one would have never expected to find among the high-and-mighty Blessed of Insomnia. He was shorter than him, but he carried himself with confidence and stared at him in the face, his expression curious and open._

_“Can I ask to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”_

_“Ah?”_

_“Why are you here?”_

_“Oh, I was tired of the Blessed Order members_ ordering _me around and telling me I should do this and that for the good of Insomnia, so I thought, why not ditch them and come to see the one person they hate? Maybe you’d be more interesting. And this way, perhaps they’ll surrender and throw me out from their little troupe as well.”_

_Haze stared up at the still-undulating mirror behind the stranger. “You’re a Mirror Traveler,” he realized._

_“In the flesh and blood. Byun Baekhyun at your service, Traveler between worlds, shadow bender extraordinaire and former errand boy and slave of the Blessed Order.”_

_“I was taught that Mirror Travelers were rare,” Haze observed._

_“Just you and me in this generation, yes. And that’s kind of the reason I ran away to the only place where they can’t force me back. The ‘greater good for Insomnia’ has turned my life up until now into a nightmare, so I thought it was time for a change.”_

_Haze wasn’t used to that - the lack of fear, the genuine interest, eyes searching his instead of avoiding his gaze. So he allowed himself to ask. “And what are you doing here? A bad host is the last thing I want to be when hardly no one comes to visit, but I’m forced to remind you that I haven’t invited you.”_

_The boy, Baekhyun, literally_ beamed _at him, and Haze forgot to breathe for a second._

_“Ah, about that. I’m sick and tired of everyone else, and I assumed you would understand the feeling so I told to myself, ‘why don’t I send everything to the starless pits of hell and ask him to take me in’? I heard about your plans from the other wizards and I can’t say I disagree - a world without suffering sounds much better than the hellhole of a city we have now, with that martial law of your mother’s.”_

_For once in his life, Haze was rendered speechless._

_“So well,” Baekhyun asked. “What do you say?”_

_For once in his life, pain was not what he felt._

_For once in his life, someone was running to him instead of running away._

_\--_

_Baekhyun was so lovely. There was something about him, in the way he moved and the way he laughed, in how he was powerful and fearless and he always knew what to do and what to say to make him feel better._

_He loved to talk, and loved to listen, and saw the world as that place with many shades of grey and where everything was possible._

_He used to laugh when Haze told him that he had never had a desire to visit the world at the other side of the looking glass, or that he didn’t care about the balance the Blessed strived to protect._

_“Ah, it’s an interesting place to visit, that’s for sure. Did you know they have their own technology to substitute their lack of magic skill? Like our magitec but different. And did someone tell you that the language in the city at the other side of the Insomnian mirrors sounds like our common tongue and it’s written the same? Those are things the bond between worlds has done - unity, balance._ Equilibrium _.”_

_“Why do you sound like one of them?” Haze replied, laughing._

_“Because I’ve been educated by them,” Baekhyun had stated with a cheeky grin. “The thing is, the concept was amazing and interesting, indeed, but I wasn’t allowed to wander around the other side for long, when the Order requested me to Travel. ‘Visit the other side and come back in an hour, Byun.’ They don’t understand what a strain on the body it is to cross the looking glass and still they ordered and ordered and never gave me a break. How was I supposed to enjoy my trips, then?”_

_“Knowing the Blessed, you probably weren’t supposed to.”_

_“And that’s why I ditched them, yes. What a disappointment, those people. Treat your powerful mages well and they won’t riot against you, that’s what I always said.”_

_There was something so lovely about Baekhyun, yes, so full of energy and warmth, and Haze was so young, and it was strange to have someone who smiled at him so fondly, so every time it happened he couldn’t look away._

_He was the only living Soul Mage, the Exalted of Insomnia, the most powerful living wizard in the world; he could break a man’s will without blinking an eye, and still he kept his powers away from Baekhyun’s mind because he wanted the boy at his side to smile at him like that because he_ wanted.

_Baekhyun, his voice of reason, who told him to stop wasting his own strength in trying to change people and to focus on his own training instead. Baekhyun, who was a powerful Blessed himself - a bender of shadow, who treated darkness as something both terrible and precious, a weapon and a shield and a source._

_The boy who had partly made him forget why he had started that quest._

_The boy who had been as scared of the concept of ‘them’ as he was. The good kind of scared, for once._

_“You… You haven’t done anything to my mind, right?” he asked him that night he had dreaded, the night he had hopelessly waited that would come. They had been training in the gardens of his South District mansion, near the lake, and they haven’t even stopped when it had started to rain._

_Rain was troublesome sometimes - it weakened Haze’s miasma walls, dissolved his black fog and made it harder to control - but it was soothing too, in a way. The coolness of water on his skin made him feel vulnerable in a way, like he was a normal boy, a regular human and not someone burdened by the weight of being a hero._

_“What do you mean?”_

_“I just… You.” They have been training their hardest, and their pretended fight had drawn them close, Baekhyun’s shadows keeping Haze in place, and Haze pressing the silver edge of a dagger over the pulse on Baekhyun’s neck. They were strong enough to kill each other, deadly dancers froze in the final step of a waltz, but their posture, their proximity, the way Baekhyun was looking at him was intimate, almost forbidden. Haze had not counted on that. He had not expected to be willing to do so much to be recognized as worthy by someone. “I shouldn’t be thinking the things I’m thinking. Chanyeol, I—”_

_Baekhyun was the only one who still called him by that name. It caused the good kind of pain._

_“I would never let the miasma touch you. I would never control you. You know that, don’t you? You’re the only thing that’s right in this world.”_

_Haze’s blade bit into his neck, not deep enough to draw blood, as Baekhyun trembled. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I just came here because— I never expected this to happen to me, but I—”_

_“But you…?”_

_The blade fell to the soaked ground, the shadows faded. Haze drew in a breath as Baekhyun cupped his cheek._

_“Stars forgive me,” he whispered, “but I want to be happy too.”_

_And he pulled him down, and then he was kissing him, hopelessly, desperately, open mouthed and warm when everything else was so cold._

_And the world was suddenly beautiful, beautiful, a shining light in the dark universe._

_He didn’t know how it had happened, but he was so, so happy._

_—_

_He felt truly blessed those months, between whispered words and hands on skin._

_Baekhyun sat with him through the day, helping him create a plan for the world to finally shine brighter. He sneaked into his room at night, a flutter of smiles and sighs and promises. Haze told him everything, he bared every single detail of who he was and who he wanted to be - he spoke about his father’s hero tales and Baekhyun laughed and kissed him._

_“So,” Baekhyun said once. “The all-great Exalted of Insomnia also has weaknesses, then? I cannot believe.”_

_“Everyone has them,” Haze replied. Not being affected by Soul Magic could be named as one, of course, but Haze’s great weakness was Baekhyun._

_He wondered if he knew._

_But of course he knew._

_The world was such a beautiful place._

_Until Haze blinked and the illusion cracked, and the crystal shards of that happiness finally made the mirage come down._

_\--_

_It had all been a farce. A trick of the Blessed. It was always the Blessed, always that balance they cared so fucking much for._

_“You’re with them?! Up until now, you were with them?! I can’t believe this! I cannot believe_ you! _”_

_Baekhyun was standing in the garden, close to the lake, surrounded by shadows that shielded him. He looked so scared, he looked so sad, but his jaw was set and his tone was firm._

_“What you’re doing is wrong! You can’t see it, Chanyeol, but your power is destroying this world and the other!”_

_“And that was reason enough for you to go the Blessed Order and tell them my secrets?”_

_Haze had always held his hopes and dreams dear, that was the only part of him that was truly his, the reason behind everything - the world was not good enough as it was, and he was just a boy who had wanted to make it better. No one had ever understood, only one person. Because his mother and his friends were traitors, the members of the Blessed Order were traitors, the Insomnia citizens who had cheered for him as a child had betrayed and locked him in. And Baekhyun had been nice to him, Baekhyun had loved him, and Haze had allowed himself to believe before he had proved himself to be the biggest traitor of them all._

_Traitor._

_Liar._

_Spy._

_It hurt so much inside that Haze wanted to die._

_“I know there’s a part in you that’s good. I know you get it, deep down. You’re so alone here. Give yourself in, Chanyeol, I can tell them—”_

_“Don’t call me by that star-forsaken name! That’s not who I am anymore!”_

_Baekhyun was shielded by a wall of shadows, but that couldn’t protect him from what Chanyeol was. He had never touched Baekhyun’s mind because it was the only thing that was beautiful enough as it is, but that idea was gone. The thing about Soul Magic, for good and for bad, was that claiming control was always too easy._

_There were no barriers, no resistance._

_Miasma poured out from Haze’s eyes, black streaks sliding down his cheeks._

_Breaking Baekhyun was as simple as snapping a twig._

_—_

_The world was dull._

_The world was grey._

_The world was imperfect._

_The world was such an ugly place._

_It needed to change._

_He had to reshape it._

_He would reshape it._

_Everything had been taken away from him, so he would take what he wanted from everyone else._

_And he would make it all better._

_Better._

_—_

_Haze had already tried something like that before, back when he was young and inexperienced and way too innocent, so he knew what to do. It has been his most catastrophic failure, so he also knew what to avoid. Once upon a time, his biggest mistake had been settling for opening only a window, becoming only a messenger and leaving the task to avoid the death of his loved ones to a weak, useless version of himself. But he hadn’t been born to be a witness; he was created to seize._

_He knew, when he crossed the mirror that night, that what he was about to do would send the balance between worlds to the depths of the star-blasted hell, but the bond between the worlds had done nothing but hurt him and it was about time he got something back._

_The looking glass took him to a small, dim room, and under the light of a single lamp was the familiar form of a boy, curled on a tiny bed. His hair was ash-brown instead of black and his skin wasn’t as pale, but he could recognize the curve of his nose and the shape of his mouth. It was him but not him: he was a shadow, a doppelgänger, a latent Mirror Traveler - another Baekhyun._

_The boy looked exhausted but he wasn’t sleeping. He got up, slowly, until he was sitting on the bed, and stared blankly at him. “Who are you?” he asked._

_Baekhyun’s mind had always been sacred ground, but even if that boy had the same voice, he felt like a different person, and so Haze reached in. He could hear it all in him - the anger, the apathy, the frustration - so he turned the noise louder, softened the edges in that boy’s soul before his distrust settled in._

_“I am the prince of another world,” he told him. “And I’ve come to tell you that you are about to die.”_

_“Is it you who is going to kill me?”_

_The boy sounded almost angry, a bit rebellious even under the first layers of his control, and Haze pulled the strings. He didn’t want a mindless puppet; what he was looking for was something more subtle, a small change in the appropriate thoughts and the rebuilding of certain attitudes for an altered version of free will. His Baekhyun had been almost perfect, but the design of his mind needed a little push in the right direction to be optimized._

_He had constantly lost to betrayal and death but he was more powerful now. Stainless, a god in white._

_He’d make the world beautiful again._

_“I am not here to kill you,” he said. “I’ve come to save you. To take you away to a better place. You can stay here and die - that’s inevitable - or you can join me in the city I come from and forget any trace of pain.”_

_The boy huffed, his essence shining out between the cracks of Haze’s control. “Don’t promise things that you can’t keep.”_

_Haze smiled. “Want to make a bet?”_

_\--_

_The balance was disrupted, and so the miasma came. Black smoke, covering the whole South District in thick fog, tainting the Veil river, oozing from the ground once the sun set. It made people happy by day and it broke them by night, making them dance and scream and lose their minds. It brought them all under Haze’s control, and that was good. He should have been satisfied, and he was._

_His only complaint was that his control wasn’t perfect yet, and that Baekhyun was not his Baekhyun. Even despite everything._

_He had come with him and stood proudly at his side when he had taken his revenge against the Blessed Order. He had protected Haze with his life during each and every one of the army attacks. He had accepted Insomnia and his new world and cherished them, and he had embraced him, loved him fiercely - begged him to touch him more and to kiss him harder._

_And he could pull his strings all he wanted - his mind was open and control was easy after all - but there were thought that simply wouldn’t fall into place._

_His Baekhyun had been careless, that one cared too much._

_His Baekhyun hated responsibilities, that one carried his close to his heart._

_His Baekhyun loathed Insomnia, deep down, and that one was learning to love it._

_His Baekhyun was the most powerful bender of shadow, and the element that one controlled was_ light.

_Haze could rewrite and rewire, but that light keep shining through the cracks. It happened once when Baekhyun freed a platoon of captured soldiers, again when he started to talk with Sehun behind his back._

_That person had Baekhyun’s face, and Baekhyun’s eyes, but kissing him was like kissing a stranger._

_He wanted to keep him. He wanted to destroy him. He wanted to shape him. He didn’t want him to be there, but he wouldn’t allow him to die._

_So he rewrote._

_He rewired._

_He kept the boy in his hold, an altered free will._

_But solitude and vision came hand in hand, and if he had learned something, it was that everyone left. He had lost a father, a sister, a mother; he’d given up his people, his allegiance and his lover in exchange of a new world, so he wasn’t surprised when Baekhyun’s replacement betrayed him as well._

_He was one of the forces who orchestrated The Purge._

_He sold him to the Blessed Order and to the Marshall’s force while he gave him the traitor’s kiss._

_He tried to kill him, even when he knew he couldn’t win._

_And of course, Haze tried to kill him back._

_\--_

_He hated them all._

_He would destroy all of them and create them anew._

_Disturbances in the balance gave him strength. The energy he needed._

_He would create a new world._

_Like a hero._

_Like a god._

_None of them would have a place in his city with no pain._

_Baekhyun’s reflection was unworthy._

_His own reflection was the unworthiest of all, as he stood in front of him,_ in _him, peeking into his mind._

_“What are you doing here? You’re not allowed.”_

_He didn’t want him in his head._

_He didn’t want him watching._

_“I didn’t let you in.”_

_He was the one in control._

_He was the ruler of that town._

_Insomnia, the city that never slept._

_“Get out.”_

_His face hurt._

_It was cracking._

_His reflection was crying tears of black and white._

_He was done._

_No more games, he would play no more._

_“GET OUT!”_

_The broken white room fell into pieces._

_\--_

Chanyeol was coughing clots of solid miasma.

The room was spinning around him as he spasmed on the floor, trying to get the substance _out._ It was everywhere inside him and he was vomiting it and crying it out, and it burned his eyes and tasted bitter as bile. He couldn’t stand. He couldn’t breathe. The only thing he was able to do was trying to get a hold in the ground of the inner sanctum as his universe came in and out of focus.

The mirror was broken. He hadn’t seen it but he knew it with an absolute kind of certainty. It has been done and he had made it, even though he didn’t know if he was dreaming still, if he had survived or if Haze would kill him for what he had done.

He couldn’t stay in that place. He needed out.

Another coughing fit folded him in half on the ground, burning his insides like his veins were made of liquid flame. His hand came out black when he brought it to his mouth, but at least he could move it. Move himself. The pain had receded, so he forced himself to crawl, away from the mirror and towards the silver blur of the exit door. His hands and forearms hurt, tiny red needles where they touched the ground, but he didn’t care.

He couldn’t stay there. He wanted to go. He didn’t want to die.

The door was far, so far, but he finally reached it, leaning onto it to stand. Oh god, it hurt, his pain and Haze’s pain, but at least he could do it. His body responded, his legs supported him. The steel of the gates was so cold under his bare hands.

“Please…” he managed to mutter. “Let me out.”

Someone was screaming at the other side, he believed. Every sound was muffled - all music and noise - as he was hearing everything through a wall of water. His breath and the beat of his heart were the only things loud and clear in his ears. Even the door opened in silence.

The door always opened in silence.

He couldn’t stand without the safety of a surface to support him, and so his knees gave in as he stepped forward. It wasn’t important: he was out. The inner sanctum and its broken mirror were behind him and someone was dragging him outside. To safe ground. Safe.

He blinked, tried to focus his vision. He saw ash-brown, and healthy skin, and something black.

“Chanyeol?” a voice asked.

A voice he knew. That he cared for. That was right - Baekhyun. The memory of Haze’s voice came crashing in, loud and bitter. Rewrite and rewire, rewrite and rewire, _rewrite and rewire._

“Chanyeol, are you okay? What did Haze do to you? What should I—?”

_I am so fucking glad he didn’t manage to break you._

Baekhyun’s face came into focus, wide eyed and pale. Chanyeol parted his lips to tell him that he shouldn’t worry, but only a whimper came out. He needed to speak, he was so happy to see him, despite his own and Haze’s pain still scorching their way through his system. He had wanted to see him one more time, the real Baekhyun - not a ghost or an illusion or the reflection Haze had loved.

Just him. That one.

“He’s tainted,” someone was saying, their voice harsh. Chanyeol was not. He knew he wasn’t. He had survived the corruption in his head and Haze’s voice was silent.

“The door let him through, didn’t it?” another voice snapped back. Baekhyun. He was saying something else, but he couldn’t quite catch it. Then he was looking at him again. “Don’t worry, okay? You’ll be fine. I won’t let him touch you.”

“I-I want—” he muttered. Words were coming to him at least, but his tone was heavy and his throat too raw. There were many things he wanted to say, but his mind was clouded in white fog and the remnants of red-hot pain. He only… “Take me… home. I want to— go home. Please don’t leave me alo— ne.”

Baekhyun’s face came close. “I wouldn’t, I—”

Chanyeol didn’t know what came after that, because the world was too blurry, and he felt too tired, and everything came out of focus as he surrendered to silent calm.

—

The world was a blur of black and white.

He was in a bed of cushions, stone and tapestries all over his head. Kyungsoo was speaking, low and angry, huffing at Baekhyun and Sehun before he strode away.

“You’re unwelcome here,” he said. Chanyeol thought it was unfair.

He fell asleep. He woke up to water on his lips and Baekhyun’s fingers on his forehead, brushing his sweaty hair away from his skin.

Everything blurred out, blurred in. Sehun was coming to say goodbye and then he was gone. Baekhyun was sitting at his side reading a book. Kyungsoo came to scowl and left. He was alone. Baekhyun was back, beside him once more. Minutes bled into hours and day passed in a long, breathless second.

And when he thought he wouldn’t come back, the fever broke and the world finally stopped spinning.

—

Baekhyun was sleeping with his back against the wall and an open book on his lap when Chanyeol opened his eyes.

Every limb hurt, like the ache after a burn, and yet he wasn’t feeling as weak as he thought he’d be. He could move if he tried, first his fingers and then his arms, and his whole body after that. He turned around on the uncomfortable bed of cushions under his back to stare at Baekhyun, but when he managed to accommodate himself in his new position the other boy’s eyes had already opened.

“Chanyeol,” he whispered, and there was that something in his tone.

“Hey, hi.”

“You’re okay,” Baekhyun said, voice hoarse, words fast. He closed the book and rushed to kneel at his side, right hand disheveling his always-perfect hair as he stared down at him.

He looked so, so familiar, and at the same time so uncharacteristically worried about him that Chanyeol almost bursted out laughing. “God, I’ve missed you so much!”

“You? Missed _me_? Oh my god, Chanyeol, I was not the one who disappeared into the mirror room in the middle of the night and came out hours later, half unconscious and spitting half-coagulated miasma like you were bleeding out!” Baekhyun blinked rapidly, looking upset as hell.

“Ah, so you’re getting angry at me for breaking the mirror now?” Chanyeol joked, voice soft.

“You looked like you were dying! And before you walked out from the sanctum you were screaming like someone was killing you, and I was just outside and I couldn’t get in! I don’t give a damn about that mirror!”

“But you should. Isn’t it the reason we’ve come here? To destroy it?”

“Yeah, but not at the cost of—!”

“Of what? My life?” Chanyeol gave him a faint smile. “Wasn’t that the cost when you brought me here? What’s different now?”

Baekhyun shook his head, biting his lip. “Shit,” he said. “Chanyeol, I—”

Haze's vision was still clear in his head. The first one of all, where his mother had been sane and Baekhyun had been in his room, waking him up, so _happy._ He wanted Baekhyun to be happy. "You know, Haze tried to control me. To break my mind, I suppose, not with Soul Magic but with the bond that ties us. He trapped me in my own head and showed me things, and I was so lost at some point but still I wanted to see you.”

Baekhyun’s remains of composure started to break, in that way where a thousand expressions seemed to swirl under his skin like he couldn’t allow himself to show whichever one was real. He clenched his fists and made a move to stand up. “I should—”

Chanyeol was faster than that. His strength was coming back, dripping in second after second, and so he reached out and grabbed the other boy by the wrist before he could get out of his reach. His fingers closed around warm skin and Baekhyun fell almost on top of him with a muffled shout.

He looked surprised, his dark, right eye wide open. He looked scared, in a sense, as scared as Chanyeol had felt a second ago. He didn’t look pained, not even a little bit.

Chanyeol wasn’t even angry. “I don’t hurt you anymore. If I touch you.”

Baekhyun stared down at him. “No.”

“Then tell me something. A truth. You say you have a duty. You say there are things you must do. But is that what you want?” He got not reply, so he smiled up. “What would you do, if you could choose what you really wanted to?”

Baekhyun dragged in a long, shaky breath. Then he bent down and kissed him.

It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t soft. It felt like a dam breaking open in the middle of a rainstorm - like water pouring out, tearing the world beyond into pieces. Baekhyun was literally _on_ him, thighs at both sides of his waist, one hand gripping the point between Chanyeol’s neck and shoulder so hard that he probably would be drawing blood soon, and lips parted and soft and slick with spit, demanding access. He was kissing him like the world was ending. He was kissing him like he was dying, and Chanyeol had seen that in his dreams and in his nightmares, he had had the noise and the song, but right then the world was silent and Baekhyun was the only thing he could hear.

Baekhyun bit his bottom lip, and whimpered when Chanyeol let out a choked sound. He turned his mouth to his jaw, the soft skin below and then his neck, biting like someone who wants to mark as Chanyeol’s hands found purchase into his hair, avoiding the strings that kept the eyepatch in place and digging into locks of soft brown, fisting them, disheveling, breaking that image of perfect properness that Baekhyun had always kept.

When he turned them around, pressing his wrists against the bed of cushions, the boy offered no resistance. He looked breathless, clothes rumpled, cheeks flushed and right eye blown. He downright _keened_ at the loss of contact, arching his back to get close.

“Fuck me,” he breathed out. _“Fuck me.”_ He grabbed Chanyeol by the wrist when he moved it to the button at the collar of his shirt. “Leave that on. No time for taking it off. Just hurry. I want it so much. To feel you.”

Baekhyun had to know, the kind of effect he had in him. He knew how to read people and what to say, but he sometimes forgot that Chanyeol was learning to read him, too.

He kissed him once more, because he could afford that. There were more things that he had seen, secrets buried deep in Haze’s mind. He had forgotten about them because he didn't want to remember. But once again, he had to. Reality was what it was.

“You're a Traveller, aren't you? Just like I am; not from Insomnia but from the other world.”

Under him, Baekhyun’s body became tense and hard. He released him, moved away so he could sit.

“What? How do you—? It was Haze, right?”

“It was, but not by choice. If you want to know what happened exactly, he tried to get into my mind but it was me who got into his. He casted me out and now I can’t feel him.”

“But you saw things.”

“I did.”

The urgency between them was gone, momentum decreasing into a slowing impulse, Baekhyun’s voice a whisper and Chanyeol’s trembling. Even though he wanted him. Even if.

“I see.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” When Chanyeol had arrived at Insomnia, Baekhyun had told him that he would make him work at ‘storytelling.’ And that was why Baekhyun did, story after story and tale after tale. He was more than aware of the fact that he had no right to be angry. He knew Baekhyun kept secrets, he had accepted and said that he didn’t mind. And he wasn’t angry, not exactly, not with him - not completely at him - but he still felt like someone had punched him in the guts. “I was so lost when I came, I thought I was the only one. Why wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t want to,” replied Baekhyun, tone sharp. His own face fell when he registered what he had just said - when he watched Chanyeol react to it. “No, that’s not it, not exactly. What I meant… I told you that there were some things I was keeping, and I didn’t want to tell them to you because I… _this_. This is about me, not about you.”

“Yeah, this is about you feeling like shit about yourself! And, I don’t know, I care about you, so you could sit with me and let it all out instead of asking me to fuck you. That’s not gonna make you feel better, if that’s what you want.”

Baekhyun looked like he was going to be sick. “What? No, no, no, I wasn’t using you. Don’t think that I’d use you, not for that, I’d never—”

“This is not about me, but you drag me in. I have feelings for you, but you want to have sex with me without me looking at whatever it is you hide under your shirt. Maybe I have no right to ask, but how do you think it feels?”

Baekhyun clutched his shirt as he stood up. He was livid. He was going to run away, and Chanyeol knew.

Rewrite and rewire. He wondered how deep Haze had dug.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Are you sick? Haze toyed with you for years. Did you catch Euphoria?”

“My reflection got Euphoria, not me,” Baekhyun replied, voice shaking. “I met him once. Haze broke his mind into pieces and he still was the stronger one.”

He turned around towards the curtains that would lead him out while Chanyeol struggled to stand. His powers weren’t stable enough yet for him to clearly hear his music, but he didn’t need Soul Magic to know Baekhyun wanted to be alone. And him as well. He wanted to follow, but he didn’t feel like looking at him in the eye. Not now.

“Hey,” he said, and Baekhyun turned back, bottom lip trapped between his teeth again. “I saw in Haze’s mind that he labeled you a traitor because you were one of the people who helped plan The Purge.”

“Yeah. I destroyed the mirrors in his mansion, and stole the one he kept in his drawing room. I collaborated with the marshall’s forces, and the Blessed Order, and with the people who lived in the Insomnia Metro tunnels, like Jongdae, and we tried to limit his powers. Break every looking glass before Haze could avoid it. Limit his power as much as we could. Make him withdraw to his mansion for as long as possible, so we could find a way to stop him while he powered back up.”

“Sounds risky.”

“It was. And still it was my idea. Haze had become careless about me so I used my chance.”

“But then I don’t understand.” Chanyeol licked his lips. “You planned all that, but still the marshall, the Blessed Order and even Colonel Suho and Jongdae despise you like you did something terrible to them.”

Baekhyun let out a hollow laugh, a twist of his usual, lively persona. “Ah, but that’s because I did, don’t you see? It was my duty to aid the Blessed Order because I helped Haze massacre them. I needed to help control Euphoria Syndrome because it turned into an epidemic when my arrival sent the balance to hell. All of this are amends for the things I’ve destroyed. And they know.”

Rewrite and rewire. Everyone knew that it was what Haze did.

Chanyeol huffed. “They don’t deserve you,” he whispered. “My mother, Jongdae, Colonel Suho, the guys in the Blessed Order. None of them. They have never deserved you.”

Grabbing the curtain with trembling fingers, Baekhyun rushed out, and finally left alone, Chanyeol fell into his uncomfortable cushion bed and cried himself to sleep.

 

* * *

 

**Eleventh Act - Pie Jesu**   
_Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.  
Dona eis requiem sempiternam._

 

The city was calm when they went back up to the surface.

“Too calm,” Sehun told them, when they dropped by Jongdae’s store to leave Chanyeol’s guitar. “People were nervous in the streets when all those patrols were looking for you two, but now everyone seems to be… fine with everything. Not even the soldiers look motivated.”

“Well, that’s good for us,” Baekhyun said, shrugging. He had left his belongings in one of the corners of the train car, shiny cane on top.

“Do you really have to go up there?”

“Yeah, we do. We’ll be fine, Sehunnie. Don’t worry about us, we’re strong _and_ we’re only going to pay Yixing a visit. We’ll be back before the curfew tonight, or in the morning tomorrow.”

“Why do you even need to go?”

Baekhyun barely looked at Chanyeol, even though he was the one who spoke that time. “I can’t hear Haze’s voice anymore, not since he tried to control me and failed. I need to ask Yixing about that.”

“Maybe the Exalted is just recharging his powers?” Sehun asked. He didn’t look particularly convinced about the soundness of his own theory, but Chanyeol shook his head no anyway. Haze’s voice had been with him even before he came to Insomnia, a constant whisper at the back of his mind that had been growing louder and louder and Chanyeol shattered the mirrors that made their shared strength shift, and now suddenly the voice was _gone._ It wasn’t muted, it hadn’t faded - it had been simply weeded out his mind like it had never existed. Chanyeol had expected the steady feeling of a ghost limb but he had gotten a clear, surgical cut and a cauterized wound instead.

The whole sensation was so strange.

Jongdae was supposed to return from his duty in the city about an hour later, but they couldn’t stop to wait for him if they wanted to be back within the day. Bidding Sehun goodbye, they crossed the abandoned metro tunnels towards the surface, blinking when they were faced with the early afternoon sun. Chanyeol didn’t know how many days they had been underground, but he was sure that it had been over a week.

The marshal had been after them when they had left but, surprisingly enough, Sehun was right and the whole city looked as calm as ever, with people rushing down the streets and colorful automobiles on the road. It was Chanyeol who was not the same.

“Oh, fuck,” he muttered, feeling his legs shake and tumbling until he found purchase on the metal railing that surrounded the exterior of the metro stop. Baekhyun hurried to his side, placing a tentative hand on his shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

He had been safe underground because the tunnels were mostly abandoned, but the streets of Insomnia were so crowded. There were people everywhere, each with their own sound, all mixing into a dissonant amalgam so loud that it was making Chanyeol dizzy.

“My Soul Magic has been upgraded two times since I was in the open for the last time,” he replied through clenched teeth. “I was kinda counting on this, but still—”

Baekhyun’s hand caressed his back, and Chanyeol tried to tell himself he was shivering because of his incipient headache. “Can you keep going?”

“No way but to go on anyway, huh?”

The hand in his back was gone, and Baekhyun was uncharacteristically silent during the whole five minutes it took them to reach the closest tram stop. He was not to blame, not exactly - Chanyeol himself was focusing too hard to keep the sound out of his brain, and besides that, he didn’t know what to say.

He could have started a casual conversation about how the soldiers didn’t even look at them twice when they walked just in front of them, or about how lucky they were to find a couple of free seats in the City Center to North District tram. He could even have commented on the weather, and how the terrible summer heat of Insomnia was a little more bearable that day, but he wasn’t sure about how the conversation should progress.

_Hey, Baekhyun, I don’t feel like melting under the sun today. Now the weather is almost as uncomfortable as what you could find in the city I come from… which you probably already know because you were born in the same place._

It sounded stupid and terrible, and not at all like something that he could say, but at least it was better than the other option that came to mind. _Ah, so you finally kissed me after weeks of having fantasies-slash-dreams about doing it, and I know I rejected you when you suggested we should have sex, but you hurt me by hiding stuff, and maybe I don’t have the right to be, but I still kinda told you I have feelings for you and you ignored it so yeah._

And if option A was horrible and option B was worse, the only thing he could do was to keep going forward with the mission and hope that Baekhyun would open up. At least, he wasn’t pretending to be happy anymore, exhaustion showing up between the cracks of his perfect mask.

“Here,” he told him, signaling for him to get up when they finally arrived to the stop closest to Yixing’s tiny home.

North District had always been less crowded than the center, but the streets around them were uncharacteristically empty. That was good for Chanyeol’s Soul Magic problem, but there was something… unnatural about the quiet, an eerie feeling crawling its way under his skin.

The sensation didn’t totally fade, not when they walked down the street, not when they finally arrived to their destination. Only when they were already sitting at Yixing’s cramped living room that the prickling under his skin receded enough for him to focus again.

“Do you want a cup of tea? Coffee? I have run out of milk again, I’m sorry.” Yixing was asking from the kitchen as Chanyeol and Baekhyun sat on opposite ends of the sofa. That would have served a purpose if said sofa was big enough for them to keep their distance, but it was a two person couch and even then their shoulders were almost touching.

“I, um, I’ll have tea this time,” Chanyeol called, at the same time Baekhyun let out a long sigh.

“Coffee for me,” he requested. Blinking, Chanyeol turned his head to look at him.

“Black coffee? You?”

“Today’s an exception.”

He apparently needed the caffeine, because he gulped the contents of his cup in one go as soon as Yixing placed it on the coffee table before them.

“Do you feel well, Mr. Byun?” Yixing asked, frowning.

“Drop the Mr. Byun thing; it makes me feel old. And same thing about the pleasantries, Yixing. I know you are this really polite guy and I’d really like to indulge you with small talk but we have no time.”

“What is the matter?”

“Remember the mirrors we talked about when all this started? We broke them all. It made Chanyeol stronger as we expected but it also strengthened the bond between him and Haze… until Haze tried to take control of him.”

“Is that so?” Yixing muttered. He wasn’t wearing gloves, artificial hand clearly in sight, and Chanyeol couldn’t help but remember Haze’s overly nice voice, offering Yixing a knife and telling him to chop his own off. He still felt so odd, so strangely nauseous, like he was going to puke.

“We had a mental fight of sorts,” he said, because he thought he’d feel better if he spoke. “He caught me by surprise but I think I won. And the thing is that I haven’t sensed Haze in my head since then. Not a trace.”

“And he is alive.”

“He has to be. He was alive and strong the last time I felt him in me.”

“Everything in our two worlds is linked,” Baekhyun added. “But I think Chanyeol somehow snapped the bond between Haze and himself. Maybe it was Haze’s fault in a sense, because he pulled from that link so much that he snapped the cord of magic bonding them but… Whatever the truth is, Haze’s voice is gone from his head, and the rest of the magic is probably gone from his system. Haze’s shield as well, possibly.”

Baekhyun had said it so casually, and despite himself Chanyeol felt his gut churn in something really close to pain. He had thought— Haze’s shield only burned the ones who wanted to hurt him in any way, and it hadn’t activated when Baekhyun had kissed him, but then—

“Can we check?” he asked. “Can you try to cut me or something?”

“I could fetch a knife and try, for research purposes. What you imply is… interesting.”

Yixing was gone and back in a second, carrying a big kitchen knife in his metal hand. He signaled towards Chanyeol’s forearm with the tip of the thing, but Baekhyun grabbed him by the wrist before he could say anything else.

“Let me,” he whispered.

“It is fair. Go on.”

Baekhyun’s pulse was steady as he grabbed the kitchen knife, but he never looked Chanyeol in the eye as the other boy unbuttoned and rolled up his sleeve up to the elbow. There was a feeling of nakedness, a strange vulnerability as Chanyeol offered the inner side of his arm and Baekhyun bit his lip as he moved to press the blade into the soft skin.

For a moment, Chanyeol thought it would work. He could feel the coldness of the knife on him for the fraction of a second - but then there was a flash and the blade flew away from Baekhyun’s hand as the boy stifled a gasp, sinking into the door frame with a crack.

“Stars!” hissed Baekhyun as Yixing turned towards the door, all calm.

“Oh, at least the blade did not melt,” he commented, as if that was some kind of achievement. “That is the only kitchen knife I own.”

“I— what happened? Is the shield operative, then?”

“If you are certain that his presence in your mind is truly gone but the remnants of his magic are still within you, I am inclined to think that perhaps Baekhyun is right and you broke the bond… but you did it only partially. To put it simply, let us say you snapped the part of that link that depends strictly on you and the Exalted. We are all connected by our reflections by both mind and magic. You brain is one thing, but then there is the spell. Ancient wizardry, centuries old, the one trick that allowed the Blessed to keep practicing their arts in Insomnia even though magic was dying.”

“The mirror spell,” muttered Baekhyun, nodding. “The one that unites our two worlds.”

“The ancient Blessed were artists in their craft. It is a pity that their work is not really appreciated. They did much more than linking two worlds together: they used looking glasses as catalysts to turn two unbound realities into mirror images. Cultural differences remain even today, of course, but our naming conventions, our language, even our physical appearances evolved to match. Even Blessed were born in your side of the mirror, despite magic users not traditionally existing in your world. It is quite the interesting process, something I have always been eager to study.”

Yixing had been looking at them both when he mentioned the other world. Chanyeol tried not to feel very betrayed and forced both Baekhyun’s and Yixing’s songs out of his head. He was feeling more and more nauseous by the second.

“So Chanyeol can’t totally separate himself from Haze? Is that what you mean?”

“Not as long as there are mirrors in one piece, if my theories are correct. The marshal, the Blessed Order, even the magitec department… They didn’t only keep those mirrors because they were unable to destroy them. They did because it is deeply rooted in the collective mind of this world that mirrors are an important matter. They are a portal for most of the energy the Blessed have been using for centuries and the origin of Soul Magic as we know it. And without them, obviously, Mirror Travelers would not exist.”

“So if all the mirrors were broken, that second link would snap, right? Does that mean that we would be able to break the bond between worlds?”

There was a long second of silence. “Is that what you are aiming for?” Yixing asked, tone soft.

“I think it is what needs to be done,” Baekhyun replied immediately, voice slightly shaking. “So can we?”

Chanyeol blinked, trying to keep his focus on Baekhyun’s profile. “Wait, we have been breaking mirrors. We dealt with all of them already.”

“Not all. There’s another one.”

“What?”

“The one Haze has been using to get to us every time we broke the other mirrors. He came from _somewhere,_ right? He has one left, that’s why he’s still strong enough.”

“Strong enough?” Chanyeol repeated. He still had that strange knot in his throat, growing wider and wider by the second. “I have felt myself getting stronger, and Haze himself mentioned that his power comes from whole mirrors while mine grows _on the act of breaking them,_ but besides the cracks on his face every time we splinter one of those glasses… Have you really seen him weaken? He doesn’t act weak to me.”

“But you defeated him.”

“I caught him by surprise, Baekhyun. And maybe it happened because I _was_ stronger than him for an instant, not because he’s lost power.”

“Chanyeol…”

“Let’s be honest here: for having only one mirror left he acted as overconfident as ever. I was in his mind, _inside of it_ , and his whole… being is fractured, which means he’s mad as fuck. And he was in great pain but didn’t look desperate to me. He was angry, but didn’t act like a man about to die.”

Baekhyun narrowed his eyes. “Pain?”

_That’s the only comment you’re going to make about my whole damn speech?_

“Ah, well, but theoretically breaking the mirrors should weaken him,” stated Yixing, before Chanyeol could add anything else. “Think of them as doors of sorts. Keeping them open makes the Exalted powerful because they allow the energy to cross from its source to him.”

“Its source?”

“Your world. That is why breaking those mirrors makes you strong instead: you are not leeching his energy; you are getting it back.”

Chanyeol would have thought all that was very funny, had he been in a different situation. “So much about me being the weaker reflection.”

Baekhyun sighed, shaking his head. “You haven’t replied to me yet, Yixing. Does this all mean that we can break the bond between worlds?”

“The spell was done centuries ago, and if something is done, it can usually be undone. Theoretically speaking, of course.”

“I looked for information about the topic when I was at the headquarters of the Blessed Order, but the books were gone.”

“They were obviously not there,” said Yixing matter-of-factly, “because I acquired them from Do Kyungsoo.” He smiled when Baekhyun stared at him, wide eyed. “Would you want me to fetch them for you? I keep them upstairs.”

“Well, yes?” the boy replied after a short pause. “That would actually be helpful?”

“Ah, I am glad to be of assistance!”

Chanyeol would have sworn there was a spring in Yixing’s step as he left for his personal quarters, leaving them alone in the living room. Baekhyun got up from his corner of the sofa almost instantly, pacing the room until he stopped in front of the kitchen knife that was still stuck in the door frame. He stretched his fingers, as if to grab it, but in the end he left his hand drop.

“So Haze’s shield’s still active, huh?” said Chanyeol. The sensation of _oddness_ that had been accompanying him since they had abandoned the tunnels had receded a little bit, but the room was now filled with a different kind of tension. He knew Baekhyun could feel it too, he could see it in the curve of his shoulders and the line of his mouth.

“It needs to go before we send you back to our world. You won’t be able to cross the mirror with it on.”

It was the first time Baekhyun said it like that. His world. _Their_ world. Chanyeol stood up. “And what are you going to do?”

“Me?”

“When we weaken Haze. When I’m not needed here anymore.” Chanyeol wasn’t really intending to make his voice sound so harsh, but he couldn’t help it. He was just so tired of all that, and Baekhyun’s melody was so loud, and he wanted to _be_ home, but there were many things that he wanted and he couldn’t get them all. “I understand what you want to do by breaking these worlds apart, don’t think I don’t. This is about separating me from Haze completely, isn’t it? So he can be killed and I can leave without dying with him.”

“This is not only about saving you. It’s about saving Insomnia as well. If the bond is broken, magic will be gone from this world, but the Blessed are a dying race _and_ there’s alternatives to magitec. There’s a price to pay, but it’s a necessary evil.”

Baekhyun didn’t move as Chanyeol approached him. He remained still, almost defiant, like he expected the other boy to start hating him too.

“But Baekhyun, what about you?”

There was a flash of surprise, rapidly repressed. “Me?”

“If we break the worlds apart, what will you do? Without Haze’s menace to fight against, will you still belong in this place?”

It took a moment for Baekhyun to finally reply, choosing the words carefully, as if they strung in his throat as he forced them out. “I love Insomnia, you know that, but Insomnia doesn’t love me. I’m their harbinger of doom or something, after all.”

“Do you… hate our side of the mirror?” Chanyeol asked. He remembered the first memory Haze had of that Baekhyun - the boy on the bed who had witnessed a prince of death come out from the mirror and had asked if it was true that he was going to kill him. He had seemed so eager to go back then, and still Baekhyun smiled.

“Do I? I was so angry and so sad when I lived there, but now…”

Chanyeol sucked in a breath. “Come with me, then.”

Baekhyun was still staring up at him, face tilted up, lips parted. He tried to take a step back, away from him, but he hadn’t taken into account the wall just behind him. He looked like a cornered animal. “Sorry, what?” he whispered.

He was going to reject him again. So that should be the last time he tried. “It was you who I wanted to see when I thought I was going to die, so I suppose that means I’d miss you?”

Baekhyun’s gaze dropped at his feet. “I’ll fight with you,” he muttered. “We’ll fight Haze together and we’ll win. I won’t hold back.”

“But you won’t come with me.”

He would have slapped himself for being so stupid. Luckily, he didn’t have time to further make a fool of himself, because Yixing walked into the living room through the door in the opposite wall, still looking so satisfied that Chanyeol felt bad for his own sullen mood.

“Here it is, here it is, what you were looking for.”

Baekhyun’s expression changed so suddenly, lips curving up into a grin. “Ah, really? Let me see!” He squeezed Chanyeol’s wrist as he passed beside him, but Chanyeol was barely able to feel the contact when a new wave of oddness hit him, leaving him slightly breathless. He turned around, hair standing on end, as he observed Baekhyun kneel before the coffee table as Yixing sat in the sofa and opened a big, ancient book.

“Careful with this volume, I believe it is one of the most valuable in my collection. But here, the clue you needed is right here in these pages. According to this, our two worlds were linked by connecting their Soulstreams - the flow of souls. That is the reason why each one of us has an exact counterpart on the other side: energy is made to flow from one reflection to the other. And this was achieved with an ancient version of Soul Magic, of course.”

“So that means it _can_ be undone with Soul Magic as well. How do we do that?”

They should have been safe in this place, all of them, but Chanyeol still felt observed, nervous, like something was becoming wronger and wronger by the second. It had been happening all day, but it was worse now. It had receded minutes ago, but now it was back in full force and he didn’t understand why.

“I am not saying it is impossible, Baekhyun, but this was achieved by a large group of people combining their forces. From what I know, Soul Magic was weaker years ago than what it is now, but still one would need a very large quantity of energy to even attempt something at that scale.”

“Would that kill us if we tried?”

“That, I do not know. However…”

Chanyeol turned his head to look out the closest window. The sun was traveling down the sky. It would set in two hours at most. Curfew would ring through the street in one hour and a half.

“We need a mirror for that, right? Haze’s mirror,” Baekhyun was saying.

“I presume so. You need to be careful, however. There is only one mirror left, Baekhyun and it will be needed for Chanyeol to Travel across.”

“So we need to incapacitate Haze before breaking it, huh?”

Chanyeol could see it now - hear it in the threads of the Soul Melody that filled the world. Baekhyun’s song was the louder than ever if he concentrated on it, but in essence it was the old same song (shrilling violins, much less monotonous and much firmer. Resolute). However, Yixing’s was not. It was almost unnoticeable at first, a buzz almost too low for his mind to catch, but it existed. It was in him, it had been in everyone.

That was the oddness he had been looking for. And he had only noticed it then because the noise had turned slightly higher.

_Oh-oh._

“Yixing.”

The man raised his head from the book. “Yes?”

“Are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s your song. There’s—” Chanyeol didn’t have time to say anything else, because the low hum in Yixing’s melody grew into a high pitched shrill and the man simply froze, the obvious concern in his face dissolving into an expressionless mask. Baekhyun stifled a gasp, leaning towards the man at his side to grab him by the shoulders.

“Yixing?” he asked. He turned to Chanyeol when he got no reply, eyes hardening when he saw the boy covering his ears with his hands. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t exactly hear his voice anymore but—”

 _“Haze.”_ Pressing his lips in a thin, white line, Baekhyun shook Yixing by the shoulders. “Snap out of it, you hear me? Don’t let him get to you.”

It wasn’t the first time that Haze had controlled Yixing, but never in Haze’s memories Chanyeol had seen something like that. “Baekhyun, we have a problem.”

“Don’t you say.” Not letting go of his friend’s shoulders, the boy scanned the room, brow furrowed. “Did Haze follow us? Where the hell is he? He has to be close if he’s controlling Yixing like this.”

Chanyeol swallowed. That odd feeling was growing, growing, growing. “No. The problem, precisely, is that I think he’s not close at all.”

“What? But that’s not—”

Baekhyun’s words died in an exclamation when Yixing moved. He did it suddenly, uncoordinatedly, like a doll hanging from broken strings, hands shaking and wide grin curving his lips up. He looked like the product of one of Haze’s nightmares - the kind of dreams Haze always showed Chanyeol.

“Yixing…” Baekhyun called again, voice all soft, cautious. “Yixing, are you with us?”

“The party,” the other man replied, raising his tone until his voice broke in a high-pitched burst of laughter. “We don’t want to be… late to the party.”

“Blasted stars. Haze, you bastard!”

“Don’t waste your words, he’s not here!” Chanyeol had moved to the window and completely drawn the curtains away. He felt terrible, almost physically sick from all the wrongness in the air. He’d had a bad feeling, and he had hoped it would stay at the back of his mind where it belonged, but his omen had turned into something real. Real and scary. “Baekhyun, look at this.”

The other boy was there even before he had finished speaking, face pale and eyes hard. “He’s doing this, isn’t he? He has stepped up his game somehow.”

“Yeah. And whatever you might believe, he doesn’t seem weakened _at all_.”

Baekhyun shook his head, speechless, eyes trained on the sight at the other side of Yixing’s window. The street had been strangely empty when they had arrived, but suddenly it was full. Of people, coming out of houses and apartments and cafes. Of puppets under Haze’s command, walking down the avenue, all in the same direction, like dolls on strings, about to break.

“How is he controlling so many?” Baekhyun whispered. His head shot up after that, eyes narrowing as he hissed a curse. “Oh, fuck, Yixing!”

When Chanyeol turned around, the man was almost at the hall. Like all the others, he wanted to get out. To leave, to follow, to submit to Haze’s will. Baekhyun was on him before the could reach the door, tackling him to the floor as he tried to use his own weight to keep him still. Yixing didn’t bother, didn’t complain - only scratched the wooden floor as he emotionlessly struggled to push the man on him away. To keep going.

“Can you do something?” Baekhyun hissed through clenched teeth. “Break his magic!”

“I can’t!”

Chanyeol had tried. His first impulse had been to wrap the full extent of his powers around Yixing’s song to soften it, but he found no music when he reached out. He could still hear it in the background, beneath the buzz, but Yixing was surrounded by a layer of noise so thick that he couldn’t breach it. He felt like he was going to puke anytime soon from the effort and the nausea, even if everything he had had was a single cup of tea. Trying to destroy Haze’s control once he had completely seized a mind was like swimming against a current too strong to keep his own head afloat.

“We can’t miss the party!” Yixing screamed then. “We have to go to the party! We all have been invited!”

He arched his body on the floor, almost managing to get Baekhyun off him. The boy’s head collided against a small table, as packed with books as the rest of the house, slim fingers closing on the wood to find support. He reached up, breathed in.

“Baekhyun!” Chanyeol called.

The boy had grabbed a volume bound in blue leather. He brought it down on the side of Yixing’s face one, two, three times, until the man beneath his body stopped moving. He huffed then, breath slightly shaking. “What party are you talking about? Stay home, you have always been more of a nerdy type.”

Chanyeol kneeled before them. Yixing was probably going to get a very ugly looking lump in his head, but at least he was breathing. “You’re savage sometimes, you know?”

“I would prefer to be called passionate and strong-willed, thank you.”

“Well, Mr. Strong-willed man, what are we going to do with Yixing? Because I assume he’ll turn into a party animal again when he regains consciousness.”

“Ah, that’s easy. He won’t be able to follow if he _can’t_ get out right? So we’re locking him in. Preferably somewhere small and without windows.”

“Like what, a broom closet?”

Baekhyun tilted his head, hair falling on his right eye. “Do you think he has one?” he asked. “I believe he has one. Do you think the door will resist?”

“I wasn’t exactly being serious.”

“Because you’re the cute cinnamon roll in this team. I am the realist war veteran.”

At Baekhyun’s signal, Chanyeol grabbed Yixing’s fallen body by the arms. “You are talking like a millennial,” he commented, as they half-carried, half dragged the unconscious man towards the front door. “It’s kind of weird.”

“Ah, been holding it in for years! But it sometimes slips, you see. It happens to the very best when they let their guard down and all.”

“Seems fair. Where are we taking him?”

Baekhyun lowered the unconscious body in front of the door, pausing for a second before grabbing a long, wooden scarf from a hanger in the corner. “With us,” he said, kneeling to tie Yixing’s hands at his back, fingers fast and nimble as he worked. “By the way, we’re stealing his car.”

“Does this mean you’re driving?”

Baekhyun finished tightening the knots and looked up at him with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hey, if nothing else, I’m fast. And fast is precisely what we need to be.”

—

The crowds were moving south.

Controlled people were everywhere, coming out from apartments, stores and cafes. All of them moved with the rigid steps of automatons, all of them laughed out loud and smiled. There weren’t as many in the usually calm North District, but the human mob started to thicken as they approached the center of Insomnia, forcing Baekhyun to slow the car down.

“Oh, shit, shit, _shit.”_

At least, people were ignoring their presence as they advanced, like they didn’t even see them and that was at the same time scary and relieving. They wouldn’t have been able to win against a full city of enemies, no matter how strong they were, and much less being weaponless, but those people were mindless and heading south for a reason, and Chanyeol wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

Bad luck for him, because that was exactly what he was going to do. It was his duty as much as Baekhyun’s, no matter how high the price, no matter how loud was the noise in the air or how powerful Haze seemed to be. There was one mirror left, and his reflection needed to be stopped.

He was controlling everyone. Chanyeol wasn’t sure if he had gotten hold of the full city, but if Yixing had been affected, then other people - Kyungsoo, Jongdae, Sehun - could be as well. And that couldn’t be, Haze shouldn’t dare, he couldn’t be so strong.

“Please,” was muttering Baekhyun, all pale, fingers clutching the wheel. _“Please._ Come on. _”_

The buildings were growing leaner and taller around them, the Insomnia skyline a picture of black and crimson red all around them. It felt like the whole city was burning, so bright, always bright, that world of magic and wonder, with the quality of those beautiful dreams that always turned into nightmares.

“We’re here! Help me with this!”

Baekhyun turned off the engine with an urgent haste, jumping down from his seat to help Chanyeol carry the unconscious Yixing. They had been in that same street a thousand times, the last of them that afternoon, but the whole landscape looked like a totally different thing with the setting sun bleeding on them and the voices of Haze’s puppets laughing and screaming as they proceeded their way down the avenue.

Chanyeol had never been so grateful for the darkness and the quiet of the old Insomnia metro tunnels and the silence that came with them. At least, until that silence became unnerving, because there was no trace of sound, no music besides his own and Baekhyun’s violin cry.

“Baekhyun, I can’t hear—” he started, panting through the effort of carrying an unconscious body. The boy nodded, gesture abrupt and firm.

“Let’s keep going.”

They descended the steps leading to their usual platform as fast as they could, but even down there was no trace of sound. Baekhyun lowered the body onto the ground as soon the stairs gave way onto solid ground and ran into the train before Chanyeol could even speak.

“Jongdae!” he called. _“Sehunnie!”_

_There’s no one there._

Something between a gasp and a cry came from inside the abandoned train, and Chanyeol left Yixing behind and rushed in. The first thing he realized was that he had been wrong and that there _was_ a person inside of the car, but it didn’t take more than a second to realize that it was only one person - Jongdae, lying unconscious on the metallic floor.

_So that’s why he has no music._

“Baekhyun? What happened here?”

The boy shook his head. He was holding his own cane, gripping it so hard his knuckles had turned white. “Someone knocked him unconscious with this,” he said. “Maybe Sehunnie? If Haze’s… spell, or whatever this is affected different people at different intervals, perhaps… Even if it was only minutes apart. Then maybe Jongdae got controlled before and… Haze can’t play with unconscious people, not with this trick. Look at Yixing.”

“But Sehun, then…”

Baekhyun lowered his gaze. “He’s not here. You can’t hear him, right? His song or anything.”

“There’s only your song and mine.” Sehun’s melody had always been that terribly emo tune, so loud and clear, a statement in itself. “Unless he’s unconscious around here, I am afraid that…”

“He’s not here. I know he’s not. And he might be safe elsewhere, but he should _be_ here. He didn’t have plans today, and I— We were supposed to be back by the curfew and he was suppose to be here waiting for us.” Baekhyun clenched his fists, bottom lip trembling. “I’m so done with him. So tired of Haze and his games. What a fucking hero he is, sending this whole city to hell because he wants to remove pain from people, huh? I prefer to hurt than to watch him do this, to you, to Jongdae, to Yixing, to Sehun.”

“To you.”

“To me.” Baekhyun nodded to himself, raising his head then, to look at him. “He wanted to control you and he has failed, so he’s going all out, huh? So much for him and his tricks, because I’m going all out as well. Good for Haze if he wants to have some kind of final fight, because sure as hell I’m not letting him win. He’s loves producing miasma, but I am a bender of light. He’s going down.”

The blood in Baekhyun’s hands glowed as he spoke, bright ramification of veins shimmering beneath the skin. Sehun had warned Chanyeol about that, he had told Baekhyun not to use his powers and brought a lamp so he didn’t have to, but Chanyeol’s weak attempt as a protest died in his throat as soon as he had parted his lips.

He looked at Baekhyun in the face. He listened to his song - a call for war, a scream for help, a prayer - and nodded. “Tell me what you want to do and I’ll follow.”

Baekhyun smirked at him. And he was beautiful, fierce, eyes as dark and hard as Insomnia’s core. “We need to pay the Exalted a visit, exactly as he wants us to, but the streets are too crowded. So tell me one thing, Chanyeol. This metro line goes south, and the subway is abandoned but operative. Do you believe you can help me make this train move?”

—

They had to walk south even after they reached the end of the train line. They had to go to the surface and cross a broad bridge over Veil river, following Haze’s puppets into the only side of the city Chanyeol had never been in.

The first thing the boy heard was the music - not a melody like the ones that painted the world in threads of sound but the chords of a real, instrumental song, the kind of upbeat rhythm that was meant to be danced.

“Is Haze throwing a party?” he whispered.

Baekhyun narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. Have that guitar of yours ready to rock.”

Under the bridge, the water of the veil swirled, turbulent, a cloud of black miasma raising from the current. The smog was deeper at the other shore, dark and thick, an entrance to the part of Insomnia that Haze had claimed for himself, and Chanyeol’s skin crawled at the mere idea of approaching it, but he took a deep breath and stayed at Baekhyun’s side as they followed the crowd right inside.

The miasma was cold in his lungs and on his skin, like a thousand of tiny needles were trying to pierce their way beneath. For a moment, he couldn’t see, couldn’t breath, and he forced himself forward by grabbing Baekhyun’s arm and concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other. All around them, the citizens that Haze was dragging towards him stammered and fell, some of them struggling to get up, others blindingly reaching out to find purchase - on the floor, on their boots, anywhere. They had to avoid the slowing and falling bodies, Baekhyun and he, sticking together and moving forward, forward, forward, until Haze’s party song was louder than the buzz of his noise.

Chanyeol thought they would have to go on like that endlessly, but after some minutes his surroundings went from black to dark grey. He had been absolutely blind, just following Baekhyun and the music, but he blinked and saw the blurred shapes of men, women and children advancing towards a point in horizon where darkness seemed less dark and the smoke around them wasn’t as cold.

 _It’s there,_ he thought, focusing on his shallow intakes of breath. He was alive, and Baekhyun was warm against him, and they couldn’t be controlled. They were armed, and strong, and ready for a fight. And step after step, they moved on, until the thickest part of the cloud was left behind and they found themselves standing at the edge of a broken world.

Haze had started to take control of the southernmost district of Insomnia when he was barely more than a child. It had been a place for the rich and the noble, but everyone had left after the miasma had started to settle in and, with no one to take care of it, the place had started to collapse.

There were no tall buildings in that side of town, only manors of black Insomnia stone that now stood like empty skeletons, ruins with collapsed ceilings, broken windows and front lawns turned into a mess of overgrown grass and pale, withered trees. Miasma still rose from the floor in a thick cloud that rose up to their knees, and stuck to every fence and every wall, covering the world in a layer of ashes.

That place was dead, and the figures that had gotten that far and keep advancing further in were barely more than white-skinned ghosts, damned by their master. Chanyeol felt himself shiver as they passed by their side, their wide, open-mouthed smiles engraved in his mind even when he was actively trying _not to look_ at them.

“What is he doing with this people?” he asked out loud, voice muffled by the ever growing music. The Southern District looked like a place of silence, and that melody shouldn’t be that loud, or so lively, not there. Chanyeol should have been whispering, not almost shouting to be heard.

“He’s leading them home,” Baekhyun replied. “All of them. Even if not all of them arrive.”

“Home?”

“His home. The Exalted’s mansion.”

Chanyeol saw it, soon after - the white manor at the end of the ash grey street. It had probably been a beautiful building once, a square mansion of lean lines and high windows, but its garden was dead and the stone of the walls crossed by cracks. The wrongness about it became more blatant as they approached - Baekhyun’s right hand gripping his cane, Chanyeol’s closed over the strap of the guitar hanging from his shoulder - because the house was too white, the walls broken but stainless, miasma floating all over the garden and the roof and curling around the spikes of the black fence, not getting in but getting _out._

If Haze’s poison was a living thing, then that house was its beating heart. The place where it all had started.

And it was surrounded by people, smiling and laughing, in afternoon dresses and labour work, a whole crowd pressed against the fence, pushing each other and stretching their hands through the bars. Trying to get into where the music was.

“What now?” asked Chanyeol. “The gates are closed.”

Baekhyun’s hands lit up in the darkness. In that place, the glow in his veins looked almost gold. “Easy,” he replied. “We are breaking in.”

He strode towards the mansion, brow furrowed, miasma swirling and dissolving when it made contact with his skin. The crowd parted for him as well as soon as he stepped in, growling through their outstretched lips as if something in Baekhyun’s person was too bright, and Chanyeol followed suit, keeping his eyes in the closed front gate while he tried not to think about the sea of people and the miasma they had breathed in.

_He’s ruining his own town._

“Haze!” Baekhyun exclaimed, voice firm over the noise. “Let’s get this over with, you hear me?”

The beat inside the house went on, louder. The army of citizens grunted and laughed, still staying away from the light. And, when Chanyeol thought nothing else would happen, the gates creaked and _moved_ , slightly parting for Baekhyun to walk in.

“Let’s go,” he told Chanyeol. “Be ready.”

“Always behind you.”

Chanyeol remembered the garden from the visions he had seen in Haze’s mind: the wide front lawn, the two rows of trees and the large expanse of grass with its little, private lake; but the landscape in his dreams had been alive, and the place we were walking across was a withering mess of grey grass, twisted trunks and leafless branches, crooked like skeletal fingers.

By the time they arrived to the front steps, the main door cracked open, and a smiling, familiar figure in a dark uniform bowed at them from the threshold.

“Colonel Suho?” Chanyeol whispered.

The man gave no signs of having heard him, grin grotesque on his face as he spoke. “And so, the guests of honor arrive,” he greeted them, with a voice that was not quite his voice, and a rigid nod of his head that didn’t fit him at all. “We have no masks for you, I’m afraid. No masks for you. Master says you don’t deserve them.”

There was only noise surrounding his soul, too loud for Chanyeol to breach it. “He’s being controlled.”

Baekhyun barely spared him a glance. “Obviously,” he muttered, an undercurrent of urgency in his voice. “Not much we can do about it. We need to put an end to the source of this mess. There’s a mirror here and we have to break it. Whatever the cost.”

“I know that.” Chanyeol didn’t know if he was prepared to die, if nothing else worked. He didn’t know if Baekhyun was asking that of him, after all. “He’s waiting for us.”

“He always has loved to put up a show.”

The music stopped when they crossed the threshold. It had been loud enough for the walls to vibrate with the rhythm, a melody of string and wind as lively as the one that had been played in Baekhyun’s party all those weeks ago, but it turned out so fast, the silence that came after that so deep that Chanyeol thought it would swallow him.

“You’re expected in the main ballroom,” said Colonel Suho. “There, you will find what you’re looking for.”

Baekhyun nodded and led the way, walking into the high ceilinged corridor at the other side of the main door. Their steps echoed on the white marble floor as they made their way, strangely loud in the empty house. That place looked like a bigger and eerier version of the white rooms where Haze had taken Chanyeol in his dreams, all the walls made of colorless, veined marble carved with a cracked version of the floral designs that were so typical in the city.

It was almost like walking in a nightmare, holding one’s breath before things took a sudden turn for the worse. He was almost expecting to wake up only to find himself in the tiny guest room at Baekhyun’s apartment. And, when they stepped into the ballroom, he wished he _could._

Because the whole place was a party of human statues. Living things, all of them still smiling and wearing black and white and red masks, all frozen in the middle of an eternal dance step.

“What has he done?” Chanyeol started, only to be interrupted by Baekhyun’s shocked gasp.

“Oh, no, no! Sehunnie!”

The boy had been grabbing a young woman’s hand when time had stopped for him. He had always had a natural grace to him, the kind of charm that made him look like a long-lost prince even when he was wearing labour clothes and was working on weapons with dirt in his hands and oil stains in his cheeks. Now, that charm had been lost to the stiffness so typical of Haze’s voice, a big smile so unnatural under the brim of his black half-mask that Chanyeol felt sick.

Baekhyun had run to him, placing a hand on his shoulder and softly squeezing. “Sehun,” he called. “Sehunnie.”

“He’s surrounded by noise,” whispered Chanyeol. He clenched his fists, nails digging crescents into his skin. “All of the people here… They’re beyond my reach.”

Baekhyun dropped his hand. “He did this on purpose. Most of the other people didn’t even make it here. Haze brought Sehun first. I’m sure he did, because of me.”

“I am friends with his reflection, and if he’s like this, then the one I know is going to be ill too.”

“He loves this. Playing with people. For god’s sake, Haze, what the hell do you _want_ to achieve with this thing? _”_

Chanyeol stepped away from Sehun, trying not to think. That ballroom, with its puppet dancers and stale air, was the only one from the moment they had entered that was not completely white, but red instead. Dark crimson curtains were draped all around the walls, hiding the white stone with a shroud of vermillion, all the way to the dome of stained glass in the ceiling. All looked clean, and elegant, a party prepared specially for them where the host was nowhere to be found.

And at the far end of the room, in a small, raised stage next to the immobile music band, there was the mirror.

“Baekhyun,” called Chanyeol, feeling the ring of his own blood throbbing in his ears. “Look at this.”

He heard the sound of the steps as the other boy walked to his side, his sharp intake of breath before he spoke. “He wants us to play by his rules, doesn’t he?”

Chanyeol took one step towards the mirror, and then another, crossing the room among the sea of frozen dancers. Baekhyun was still at his side as he went up to the raised stage and stretched his arm out to graze the glass.

“What are you going to do?” the other boy asked.

As Chanyeol saw it, they could leave the room immediately, forget about Haze’s grotesque party and try to look for him all around that house. But he already knew they wouldn’t find him and that his calling would bring more people to the South District with the passing of every minute. They were deep into the enemy’s territory, but they would lose if they retreated and what they needed the most was to lure the man _out._

“I am breaking this thing. Are you okay with that?”

Baekhyun nodded, stern. “That’s what I came here for, whatever happens after that. Go on.”

“Whatever happens.”

Chanyeol inhaled, situating himself in front of the looking glass and closing his eyes as he focused on the music and his guitar. There were only two melodies to listen to in that place, Baekhyun’s violins and the song that was always with him, that rhythm that was everywhere in the world and that now surrounded him with the insistent beat of drums.

He was ready. He had to be ready and he called, turning the instrument on and feeling the magitec core heat up against his body. He knew the song by now and he played it by heart, commanding the mirror in front of him to obey, to crack and break and be forever destroyed. _That thing was supposed to be your way back home,_ an annoying little voice said at the back of his head, but Baekhyun had asked him what he wanted and that was it - he would find another way; he’ll wait until winter and then sing to frozen ponds. He would remain there for as long as he needed to, he would lock himself in if he couldn’t go back, because if he let Haze be, his reflection would destroy much more than Insomnia City.

Baekhyun was right when he said that they needed to force those worlds apart.

He could control the music, and he forced the sound upon the glass. He felt the strain in his body, growing in his blood as the cracks extended through the polished surface of the mirror. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know he was succeeding. He heard the cracking sound and then the pieces of glass were falling down.

He felt the power after that, making his blood burn, destabilizing his own magic as it settled in. His song faded, back to a place where he couldn’t reach it.

And it was done. For the moment. Done.

Baekhyun’s hand closed around his wrist, warm on his sweaty skin. “Chanyeol,” he whispered, urgent.

Another voice replied before he could. “Ah, that’s right, Chanyeol, you did so well. Aren’t you proud of yourself, little boy?”

The whole room came to life in the moment it took Chanyeol to turn around, bursting with laughter and music. The band was playing again, a lovely jazzy song with trumpets and piano, and all the dancers moved to the rhythm as if they had never been in stasis. Only one person remained still smirking at them from the threshold.

He wore a long coat of pure white, hair pushed back and silver mask covering the upper half of his face. Despite its cover, and as he made his way towards the place Baekhyun and him were, Chanyeol could clearly see the cracks forming on his skin and the miasma that oozed from them. The song raised in a crescendo with every step he took, reaching its climax as he arrived before the raised stage, surrounded by a crowd of dancing ghosts, swirling in a sea of velvet, cotton and silk.

They stopped when Haze did, leaning their bodies towards him as he rose through the steps with the hint of a predatory smile on his lips. He was in his home, surrounded by his own slaves, and he carried himself like a king. “Ah, if it isn’t Chanyeol and Baekhyun - the impostor and the traitor. How have you two been?”

Baekhyun’s eyes narrowed into slits as he stepped between a still unstable Chanyeol and his reflection. “Quite a nice ball you have here. It surpasses every dance party I have ever prepared, I have to say, and I work at that.”

“So you’re enjoying your welcome?”

“Maybe I would, if my friends weren’t in the crowd.”

“Ah, Oh Sehun and the Colonel. They really wanted to come, you see, as did Mr. Zhang and that magitec engineer associate of yours. A pity that there was some kind of… inconvenience that prevented it, you see. Same with my dearest mother. The way she uses her magic to resist the rot in her blood makes her impossible to persuade. Isn’t it a shame?”

Baekhyun didn’t take the bait. “What have you done with these people?”

“The good citizens of Insomnia have lost track of what’s good for them. They were deceived, by the Blessed Order and my mother’s government, and that has moved them to betray me out of sheer ignorance. They have been turning their backs on me for years, but they are too easily manipulated to know better, so I’ve made them see the light.” The crowd cheered for Haze as he spoke, a low roar born in bowed heads and paralyzed bodies. “Despite not being aware of it, all of these people had already let me in, even those who think themselves to be completely free of my influence. Who hasn’t breathed a bit of miasma once in their lives after all?”

Baekhyun took a step forward. “You— Why are you making such an effort to destroy this city?”

“I am not destroying it,” replied Haze. “What you’ve never understood is that I’m saving Insomnia. I’m enhancing it, turning it into the place it was supposed to be, but I require the help of every citizen for that. It’s the least they can give me after all I sacrificed.”

“They are infected.”

“But being this way, they know no pain! They are happy! And it doesn’t matter if the process is still incomplete, because they provide me with the energy I need to make them perfect. It’s the only option I have left after your Chanyeol rejected the chance to help me. The souls of the good people of Insomnia will open the doors of change!”

“What the hell are you saying?”

Chanyeol swallowed, feeling his legs shake. “The gate between worlds,” he whispered. “He told that to me when he tried to take control of my mind. He wanted to use me so he could mess with the bond.”

Baekhyun clenched his fists at his sides. “The energy,” he said. “You’re taking the energy of our side of the mirror.”

Smirking, Haze shrugged. “Your world has too much energy and no people with the capacity to put it to use. The Blessed Order love using all of that balance nonsense as an excuse, but they have always been blind.”

A disturbance in that balance had made Chanyeol’s mother sick, and he almost could see her, wandering across the empty hallways at their apartment, hidden behind a wall of darkened glass. He recalled Baekhyun too, the first time Haze had seen him, curled in his bed and not even scared of looking at the god of death straight in the eye. “If you drain the energy of our world, you’ll destroy it.”

“And what if one side of the mirror has to die for the other to flourish?”

“You’ll doom your own world too! The lack of balance will destroy Insomnia, don’t you see it?” Baekhyun exclaimed.

Haze was still smiling, so satisfied with himself, an actor in the last act of his play, and Chanyeol looked at him and realized. There was a conclusion Baekhyun had come up to; others could have thought the same. “No,” he whispered. “He will steal our energy. And then he’ll break the bond. He’ll keep it all and leave our people to die.”

Baekhyun visibly paled. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Ah, but why wouldn’t I, Baekhyunnie?”

“You can’t. You’re one man. Taking the energy of a whole world _and_ closing the bond. You’re only a man and you’re—”

Haze turned around, the tails of his white coat fluttering around his legs as he walked to the front of his public. The noise was everywhere, the kind of low buzz that got into the back on one’s head until your brain started to hurt - a dull, constant kind of pain. “Alone, do you mean to say? Is that what you imply?” he asked. It was true that he was as human as Chanyeol, but he looked like a masked god as he stood, back straight, in the middle of his very own crowd of worshippers. The cracks were already fading from his skin, his lower cheeks and chin as smooth and unnaturally pale as the rest of him. “That, Baekhyun, is the destiny of the ones like me. The place where I stand is unachievable for common mortals; it was my mistake to try to mingle with them. I don’t need to be loved by Insomnia, you see: if they have to fear me to be saved, so be it. Power is the only thing I need, because with that power I will do great things. My mother, the Blessed Order and you were the ones who tried to take that power from me, but to no avail. There’s one thing you have lo learn, little boy, and that is that people like you will never be a match for the ones like me, no matter how hard you try to stop me. Be my guest, will you? Because there is something I’ve been wanting _so hard_ to show you.”

Haze raised his hands up high, smile as wide as the ones in his puppet’s faces, and, all at once, the red curtains draped around the walls of the room fell. A gasp came out of Baekhyun’s lips, and it sounded so shocked and pained that Chanyeol felt the impulse to rush to him beneath the waves of his own paralyzing surprise.

It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t be.

Baekhyun and the others had organized the Purge so all the mirrors in Insomnia would be destroyed, but the walls in that room were full of them. They covered the whole surface of them, from floor to ceiling, some small and round, others big enough for a man to fit it, all of them showing them different angles of the same distorted reflection. Everywhere he looked, Chanyeol could see Haze. The lord in white, surrounded by miasma.

“How?” Baekhyun whispered, voice hoarse. “We broke them all before you— The marshal raided the city for them all. You couldn’t have—”

“You think yourself very clever, don’t you?” replied Haze, voice sweet as honey. He was the only one moving amidst his garden of human statues, and his face looked strangely expressive when he took his mask out. “You believed you could deceive me, dethrone me and get away with it. You used my only fleeting moment of weakness to get rid of my control for a while, but that doesn’t mean you could avoid me forever. You organized this whole little plan in secret, but who knows? Maybe you were also the one who whispered it to me in the dead of the night. You tried so hard to carry on back then, but deep down you were so weak… Who knows, maybe you weren’t only a traitor to me and the people in this town, but also a traitor to yourself. Such an unworthy reflection.”

Baekhyun shook his head. “You’re lying.”

“They fixed you up so well after your little plan was a _success._ Was it a reward for your services? Because maybe they should consider taking it off.”

“You are lying! I didn’t tell a single thing to you!”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Baekhyun!” That time, Chanyeol rushed to his side, keeping him steady by the shoulders. The other boy looked livid, light pulsing beneath his skin, illuminating in gold the veins in his hands, face and neck.

“Chanyeol,” he muttered. “Get Sehun out.”

“What?”

“No matter if your powers don’t work here. Do what you can and get him out.”

“Baekhyun, don’t—”

“I am so tired of you, Your Exalted Majesty.” The boy freed himself of Chanyeol’s hold and started descending the steps, slowly. His whole skin was glowing now, so bright it was almost blinding, and Chanyeol could clearly hear the ring in his blood, the melody in his soul finally unleashing, a cry of pain and the steady bit of determination all over the buzz, muting it. “You took me away from my world, because you lied and I believed you. You gave me a city I loved and deceived me so I destroyed it when I thought I was helping. You made me weak, you made me worthless, you made me a walking disgrace in this world, but you know what? You didn’t break me, and now you can’t get inside my head. You’ve almost ruined me, but as hard as you tried to make me like you, I am not the one who destroyed every single one of the things that I love. You’re going down, Haze, and I am the one who’s ending you.”

Haze sighed, shaking his head, and Chanyeol felt something viscous and disgusting falling from his skin - the magic of the shield that still protected him. “He’s unguarded!” he shouted. “His magical protection is gone!”

“Ah, but of course. I am trying to make the fight a bit fairer for everyone. You should be thankful, Baekhyunnie. Despite your… personality, you still have a very handsome face. I don’t want it disfigured by burns when I bury you.”

Baekhyun snorted as he reached the main floor. “Don’t pretend you’re doing this for me,” he said.

And then, he attacked.

Cane in hand, he dashed towards Haze, blade singing as he aimed it for his chest. For a moment, Chanyeol thought the paralyzed citizens of Insomnia would get into motion, controlled by his master to protect his body, but when they actually moved what they did was to step _back_ , leaving space at the middle of the room for Haze to maneuver. He was graceful, a moonlight shadow to Baekhyun’s sharpness, and evaded the blow with an apparent ease by putting himself out of reach. But Baekhyun was persistent and he insisted again, aiming for Haze’s feet, going for his face, not losing his ground when his rival finally unsheathed the decorative blade he carried at his hip and steel met steel.

They were fast, and lethal, and beautiful as dancers in the middle of their last waltz. Chanyeol was enthralled for a second - Haze, surrounded by an expanding cloud of thick miasma, and Baekhyun, who vanished it under rays of golden light. That was Baekhyun’s fight, and he wanted to watch. Haze was strong, and he wanted to help. And instead, what he did was to run, mentally urging his own body to assimilate the power he had gained, and stepping, guitar still strapped to his shoulder, towards the immobile crowd of Haze’s slaves.

He had last seen Sehun in that side of the room and he needed to get to him, and he needed to do so soon so he could help. _Come on, let’s get you out. Come on!_

“So I see you have kept up with your training as a fighter after all,” Haze was saying, slightly panting as he blocked one of Baekhyun’s vicious attacks. “You were always an avid learner. Pity that you never could get the most important lessons.”

“Pity that you couldn’t wire them into my brain!”

All the faces in the crowd looked the same, masked and smiling and still, as Chanyeol made his way forward. An old man. A woman. A girl in a dark blue afternoon dress. A man in laborer clothes. Face after face after face in the same never-ending nightmare. Haze’s noise was floating around him, making him nauseous and unfocused. _Don’t listen to that, come on. You need to concentrate._ Sehun had always been so easily recognizable, not only by his mannerisms and voice and face, but by his song. He sounded so emo-rock, a little act of defiance in a world of classical and military marches. That music had been muted by Haze’s noise, but it was there, somewhere, below the chaos. It had to be.

If only he could listen to it. If only.

If he could call to it.

Baekhyun and Haze were still fighting around them. The miasma was getting to where he was, cold and humid as he breathed it in. But still, he couldn’t be touched, and he wouldn’t be attacked, so he closed his eyes and placed his fingers on the strings of his guitar.

He couldn’t listen to Sehun’s song, but he had heard it so many times that he _remembered_ the sound of it. The first chords came out inaccurate, slightly discordant, but the music took shape in his brain and his fingers as he proceeded, louder and faster and clearer. He could do that. He _had_ to do that, and it was something he needed so he did, letting out a call and waiting for its response.

Until, finally, he got it.

It was faint at first, so much that Chanyeol was concerned that it could be an echo, but he kept playing and he found a reply in the sound, just there, wanting to be heard. _As expected from our rebel prince, huh?_ He focused on that and kept it on his mind, humming lowly to the sound so it didn’t disappear. Then, he put down his guitar and ran, following the thread of sound.

“Don’t be such a unmannerly guest, my dear reflection,” Haze’s voice came from somewhere at his left. He looked to his side and saw the other man almost on him, the crowd opening for him as he advanced. “It’s not your place to play your little song in another man’s party!”

“It’s not him you’re fighting!”

Baekhyun came just after him, hidden blades peeking from his sleeves, gleaming with the same gold light that surrounded him. The whole room illuminated in white when he attacked.

“You are starting to annoy me, boy!” Haze replied. He turned towards Baekhyun, and the boy fell to the ground, covering his ears with a scream. Chanyeol was going to run to him, Sehun almost forgotten, when light surrounded the other boy’s body in a shimmering barrier and he got up.

“You need to improve your tricks, Haze,” he hissed, looking at Chanyeol for the fraction of a second before the dashed forward again. “Go!” he exclaimed, light curling around Haze’s dark puffs of miasma. “Come on, go!”

The force of his power threw Haze against the closest wall, back colliding with one of the bigger mirrors. Chanyeol had expected the glass to crack, but instead it liquified and swallowed the man in, turning solid after he had completely disappeared beneath. He looked up just the second he reappeared at one of the mirrors above them, lips curved up in a savage smirk.

“Oh, little boy, is that the best you’ve got?”

Baekhyun jump up, the light burning so bright in his chest that it was starting to charr his shirt and jacket. “I am going to stop you!” he exclaimed.

He didn’t know how much time he had left, so Chanyeol ran.

The thread of Sehun’s sound took him to the rightmost corner of the ballroom. The boy was there, still smiling, and Chanyeol took the mask off to observe his face, calling his name. He looked as dead as a doll, eyes open, skin unnaturally pale and veins already starting to darken under his skin. He remained paralyzed when the boy tried to push him out of the room, unresponsive, like he was more dead than he had ever been alive.

“You have to come with me,” he said. “We have no time. You need to get out of this place.”

There was no reply, but this time, Chanyeol had a thread of sound and he used it. Haze was powerful, but he was fighting Baekhyun, influencing half a town and controlling the whole group of people of that ballroom, and in the end he only was a man. A human man, who shared energy and a soul with Chanyeol.

_We are one and the same, bond by the soulstream. So if he can, then I have to._

There was noise, resistance, for a second, two, three, and then it was over. Sehun’s grotesque smile didn’t fade, but at least he _moved._ Chanyeol could hear the music now, loud and clear, but strangely distorted. It was so frail, malleable; he could have done whatever he wanted with it. Instead, he tried to bring it back to its original shape. It was a song he remembered, a song he could play by heart. He did it the best he could, and when he finished he added something else - a command, deep in the younger boy’s soul. _You want to go back to the tunnels. You want to run away from this place. You’re scared, you want to leave. And you will, now. And you’ll be okay. I’ll assure you._

Sehun nodded, face falling into expressionlessness, and then to fear. He stood there shaking for a moment, tormented by demons Chanyeol himself had placed inside of his head, paralyzed as the mirrors showed them the kaleidoscope scene of the battle around them. The boy didn’t know what he was seeing; he didn’t know if he had messed up with his head, or if the miasma was already too deep in him, trapping him in a place he wouldn’t be able to come back from.

His friend, then one in his world, would be affected as well. It was like losing two people at the same time.

“Sehun,” he called.

The boy blinked, eyes focusing on him at last. “I can’t be here,” he mumbled. “You don’t understand. I have to run. I’m sorry, Chanyeol.”

“Don’t be,” the boy replied.

His friend looked at him, face strangely open, and ran. No one tried to stop him. No one realized. And Chanyeol just stayed where he was and let him go. After that, he took a long breath and turned around.

And he saw Baekhyun standing alone in the middle of the room, body ablaze and heart on fire.

Even his hair seemed on fire, lit in red and white and gold, radiance coming from him in waves and vanishing the poisonous fog with every throb. Haze was gone, and Chanyeol rose his gaze to search for him and he rushed to meet Baekhyun. When he saw him, he was coming from the ceiling, body materializing out of one of his many mirrors, sword in hand and smile in his face.

Baekhyun was ready, deadly serious and on guard, but Chanyeol realized a little too late that his reflection wasn’t coming for the other boy, but for him instead.

“Watch out!” Baekhyun shouted, setting into motion.

Chanyeol threw himself at the floor, cursing when he felt the impact of his body against the cold white stone. He curled around his guitar, trying to get up, and he knew Haze was there, but Baekhyun was faster. He rose his cane to meet Haze’s sword, both weapons colliding with the screeching song of steel against steel.

He stood, as fast as he could, at the same moment Haze drew back.

“You okay?” asked Baekhyun through clenched teeth. “Can you help the other ones?”

If he tried hard enough, Chanyeol could hear his own song, the one that was always with his, vibrating under the constant noise in the room. He could hold onto that one, he could try to play, but still— “Maybe I could get them all at the same time, but Haze’s too strong. He’ll block me.”

“Can you break the mirrors?”

“One by one? My powers are still—”

Baekhyun flashed a smile at him. The collar of his shirt was starting to burn out, the trace of his veins golden under his skin. “Try your best, will you? I will protect you.”

Haze was coming back at them again, this time from behind them, and Baekhyun’s light shield is wide to cover Chanyeol, too. The boy sensed the wave of noise before he felt it, a blast destined to hurt and incapacitate and make his head hurt. When he looked at Baekhyun, he realized there were glistening beads of sweat on his forehead and temples.

“I know this is a bad moment to say it, but don’t overdo it. Please?”

Baekhyun actually laughed - a pretty, husky sound. “Finish your part quick and I won’t have to. Now go!”

There was something in Baekhyun when he was like that. A radiance, a cry, an energy that normally was suppressed deep inside him and that was suddenly out. In a world made of noise, he was surrounded by music, a melody entwined with the song Chanyeol always heard, in tune with it.

It made the boy want to be as strong, try as hard.

He had a part to do, so he gripped his guitar and went.

He heard the clash of steel behind him, saw the blinding flash of light. There was no time for thinking, so he focused on the music, commanded it to be louder and focused on one of the biggest mirrors, just in front of him. _I’ve done this a thousand times. I’m prepared for this._

His guitar warmed under his fingertips, magitec generator bringing it to life, light flashing bright red as he played his song. The surface of the mirror undulated, trembling before the bright cracks began to form. “Splinter,” he hummed, and the looking glass listened and Haze screamed.

“What about now?” he heard Baekhyun ask, voice sharp as a hidden blade.

There were hundreds of mirrors in the room; Chanyeol went for the next big one. He could feel the power entering him, a momentary peak of strength before his energy destabilized further. It felt like a wave he could ride, and he used it to attack the next mirror, focusing on it and not thinking of anything else. He was powerful; Soul Magic was his to command and all the looking glasses of Insomnia would do as he wanted.

 _Break,_ he thought, and a second mirror cracked. _Crack, splinter, explode._

He only stopped when he heard a scream coming from the other side of the room. A curse coming from a voice that was exactly the same as his.

When he turned around, Baekhyun had one of the hidden blades of his wrist to Haze’s cracked neck.

“I got you,” he said. “I finally got you.”

Chanyeol could see them clearly from where he was: Haze kneeling on the floor, head tilted up, and Baekhyun almost on him, with his back to Chanyeol and his whole body gleaming golden.

“You’ve always had an outstanding control of light magic, I have to say,” Haze was saying. “But that’s not surprising. Your other half was the best bender of shadow I have ever seen. None of the other idiots in the Order he served were half as capable as he was.”

“Don’t you dare mention him!” Baekhyun replied.

“Oh, you’ve always been so angry with me, little boy. But well then, you’ve got me now. There’s no shield on me, so aren’t you going to kill me?”

Chanyeol’s breath hitched. The constant beat of music was leaving his fingers, and perhaps he should have kept it and continued playing, but Haze had been weakened, and Baekhyun had him, and he couldn’t help but watch. He moved towards his right along the wall, so he could see the boy’s face, hard and beautiful, burning with passion and rage.

“You didn’t ruin me,” he growled. “And you won’t be ruining me again anymore.”

“Of course I won’t.” On the floor, Haze shrugged. He was still smiling, not concerned at all, when he raised a gloved hand to grip Baekhyun by the chin and tilt his head down. The gesture looked strangely intimate, the softness in it essentially _wrong._ “But now, you waited for years, so kill me. Can you? Will you?”

Chanyeol’s blood turned as cold as miasma in his veins. He thought Baekhyun would do it, in that same moment. That he would sink the blade in Haze’s neck to fulfill his duty. He was almost expecting it, anticipating the moment and dreading it because of what it meant, and almost didn’t understand what was going on when Baekhyun hesitated.

Clearly amused, Haze laughed. “Ah, so that’s how it is. You crave to, but you can’t kill me, because that will hurt your boy over there. This is not only about what you want, but about what you want _more._ Poor little Baekhyunnie; yours is such a sad story.”

Baekhyun pressed the blade against Haze’s neck. It drew blood, thick and red over the pristine white of his skin. _“Keep quiet!”_

“Am I bothering you? I am just stating a truth. You were unwanted as an original, unworthy as a reflection. You should be dead but you’re still breathing and you had the bad luck to develop feelings for the right reflection at the wrong time, so you now must sacrifice others instead of just yourself. What a tragedy.”

“I told you to _shut up!_ ”

Chanyeol stared at the room around him. At the miasma that still covered the room up to his knees; the same miasma that has affected Sehun and his mother, turned the city of dreams into a nightmare. He let go of the guitar that still hung from his neck. “Do it!” he exclaimed.

Baekhyun turned his head to look at him. His right, uncovered eye looked huge in his face. “What?” he whispered, just loud enough for Chanyeol to hear.

Baekhyun, who wasn’t really that bad, under all his layers and shields. Baekhyun, who deserved salvation as much as he did.

“You’ve got him! You have to do it! It’s your chance, while he’s weak!”

Haze clicked his tongue. “Look at you two,” he said. “My favorite kind of star-crossed lovers.”

What came next happened too fast. Baekhyun didn’t even have time to reach when Haze sent a wave of noise in his direction, throwing him back on the cold floor.

“Wait, no, Baekhyun!” Chanyeol called, but he realized too late that his reflection was not going for the other boy, but for _him_ instead. Haze had turned towards the closest mirror, and when Chanyeol blinked he wasn’t there anymore, but at his side of the room, coming from the looking glass behind his back like an apparition, gripping him and painfully twisting his right arm so he could hold him still from behind, voice a poisonous whisper on his ear.

“You could leave, you know?” he told him. “There is no shield on you anymore, and Baekhyun won’t be able to follow. Have you thought about it? There are one hundred mirrors for you to choose from in this room. You could go back to your world and pray for me to spare you.”

Haze forced him to turn him around, face to the mirror. Baekhyun was calling his name somewhere behind them, but even if he didn’t want to look, Chanyeol’s eyes focused on the polished glass surface, and in the wall it was trembling and changing, turning into a window to another place, a city he knew so well.

“You should enjoy this while it lasts. It’s what you wanted from the start: to go home. And I would allow you, you know? Take this as a favor from me to you. A chance for the child who has my face. Won’t you take it?”

Wide eyed, Chanyeol stared at the street at the other side of the looking glass. The familiarity was excruciatingly painful: he missed the crowded streets, and the cars, his works shifts at the video game store. He missed being the unluckiest boy in the world, the kind who would never score a date with someone as good-looking as Byun Baekhyun and worked long shifts at the video game store. He had been a normal boy, back at home, and he had turned into a powerful wizard by traveling across an enchanted looking glass. He had tried both realities, and already knew which one he preferred.

He had never loved his city so much as now that he was seeing it as something he had already lost for good.

“What are you suggesting?” he asked, voice shaking. “That I go back to my family and friends so no one resists you when you shatter my world into pieces? That I leave Baekhyun alone? I am not stupid, Haze: you do favors to no one.”

He could feel Haze smile against his skin. “What a pity, Park Chanyeol. You might not be such an unworthy reflection as I thought you were.” The street at the other side of the mirror trembled and faded until only glass remained. “You might be brave, a little honorable boy, but that’s how the stupid die. I won’t end you now, but I’ll deal with you once the bond between worlds has been torn apart. And about Baekhyun…”

The room was fully illuminated, by pulsating, golden light. Haze released Chanyeol, pushed him forward against the mirror. His guitar collided with the glass.

“I am your rival here, you bastard!” someone was screaming. Baekhyun.

 _Go away. You don’t have to get close. You know he’s more powerful than he looks, you know— You were never close to killing him._ “Baekhyun! Don’t go for him!”

The boy didn’t listen. Haze laughed and launched forward.

And, by the time Chanyeol could register what had happened, Haze had dragged Baekhyun towards the center of the room and was keeping him in place as he had taken hold of Chanyeol just before. The scene was almost the same, but Baekhyun looked weaker, more tired, golden light still glowing under his skin, but veins too marked on the surface. As if they were wounds. _Cracks._ Climbing up his neck and peeking out from under the patch over his left eye like the skeletal legs of a spider.

“Now it’s me who’s got you,” Haze stated, smirking directly at Chanyeol. “And there’s something you should remember, little boy: I was the one who made you, so keep in mind that I can destroy you. Is that what you’re looking for?”

“Let him go!” Chanyeol exclaimed.

“Do you want me to? Ah, you’re so afraid for Baekhyunnie, right? You don’t want me to hurt him.” Baekhyun was putting up one hell of a fight, struggling to break free from Haze’s hold, but either his rival was too strong or his previous duel had weakened him too much, because he screamed, skin still dark gold and heart burning in his chest, when Haze twisted his arm behind his back. “You see, Chanyeol, it doesn’t exactly matter if he’s hurt or not. He’s far too gone: you’re trying to fight for a ghost. Hasn’t he told you?”

“What in the world are you—” Chanyeol perfectly knew - had always known - that Haze loved to play with the truth, modifying it until facts got twisted. Every time he listened things went wrong, so he had learned not to, so he already had half of his curtest reply out when he saw Baekhyun’s face. The glow in his skin was dimming, but the dark traces of his veins were still there and the boy was staring right at him - not shocked or angry, but ashamed. _Afraid._ It was Baekhyun himself who had told him the day before that he wasn’t sick with Euphoria, but that his reflection has been.

He didn’t know what kind of expression his own face was spotting, but Haze laughed right at him. “He loves keeping his secrets, this one. What kind of story did he tell you, about that eyepatch he has? Did he got his wound at the battlefront, at a work accident…? Or was it the pirates? It’s always the pirates when he wants to impress.”

Baekhyun had turned completely still, his chest rising and falling in shallow intakes of breath. It reminded Chanyeol of the dreams Haze had showed him, where Baekhyun was all too soft, and too expressionless and too pliant. Not himself at all.

Not himself at all.

“What did you do with Baekhyun’s reflection?” he asked, voice barely coming out. “After you damaged and destroyed all he was?”

“I kept him safe.”

Still in his hold, Baekhyun let out the shadow of a laugh. “Sure you did. You made him so fucking sick that he didn’t know where he was. So much for safety.”

“Where is he?” Chanyeol repeated.

Haze took a moment to answer. “Even after all, he betrayed me again,” he said. Baekhyun was looking straight at Chanyeol. Right in the eye, so honest, so sad, so brutal. “He took his own life right before the Purge.”

The words were a gust of cold wind right in Chanyeol’s head. He felt like he was falling, falling, without a chance to get up. He understood now, why Baekhyun’s song was normally so _suffocating_ , because he was already choking with his own words, with the open look in the other boy’s face.

“But that…” he started. “That can’t be. If the other Baekhyun’s dead, then… But how long ago was the Purge?”

“Too long ago, indeed, but I told you: your boy is a ghost. The people he sold me to when he betrayed me still despised him, but they agreed to fix him. They needed someone alive to blame. My mother did not agree, of course, and neither did the Blessed Order but Baekhyunnie here has many _friends_ who needed a martyr to fight their battles. What they did to him is not permanent: look at what it’s doing to his body.”

Haze took hold of the front of Baekhyun’s charred shirt and pulled, tearing the blackened fabric down. The boy’s light flickered and went out, and what remained were only the cracks, still thin and new as they travelled down his neck, but growing wider from his collarbones down, blackened and wide as they went closer to his heart - or, more specifically, the pulsing, burning thing above it, buried deep in his skin. A thing that looked strikingly similar to the magitec generator Sehun and Jongdae had installed in Chanyeol’s guitar.

Baekhyun was not looking at him.

“What’s— What’s that?”

“A terrible mistake. It keeps him alive, I suppose, and safe from the reach of my mind, but have you seen what it does to his magic? He used to be the best light bender in all Insomnia. I’d rather be dead than so… crippled.”

Baekhyun started to struggle again, cheeks flushed red in shame but gaze as hard as the black Insomnia stone. Chanyeol took a step forward, looking for the music beneath the noise. What he found was nausea instead, the kind of weakness that came to him when his powers were still destabilized. _Fuck._

“Better be crippled that controlled by someone like you,” hissed Baekhyun. The metallic circle in his chest turned hot, bright white as the boy activated his powers again. “I might be a living ghost, but it’s my duty to take you down with me when I go!”

Haze’s hands let go at the same moment Chanyeol started running towards them. “Do you really?”

Baekhyun turned around, fast, shield of light starting to take shape around him. Haze stretched his right hand towards the boy’s chest. Chanyeol knew then what was going to happen, but the only thing he could do was to scream a warning at the top of his lungs at the same, precise moment when his reflection sent a shockwave of sound to the device buried in Baekhyun’s chest.

There was a spark of lightning. Baekhyun’s shield grew huge and exploded, blinding Chanyeol as he advanced, and the next thing he knew was that something heavy and warm had collided against him, throwing him to the floor. When he managed to open his eyes and move through the sudden burst of flame, the first thing he saw was Baekhyun’s face.

“Hey,” he called, trying to sit, holding the boy by the waist as he did. The eyepatch was gone from his face, little cracks forming a small, chipped cobweb at the corner of his left eye. Baekhyun blinked without seeing him, the iris and pupil of a crystallized grayish-blue. He was barely conscious, the round thing in his chest a black, charred mess. “Baekhyun. Look at me. Baekhyun, please.”

The boy raised his head, eyes unfocused. “He kept him in a locked room,” he whispered. “He was sad, so sad. He loved him, despite everything.”

“Baekhyun, listen. You have to listen,” Chanyeol started, heart hammering in his chest. Everything had been okay that morning. Baekhyun had been okay. That couldn’t be happening. He had to get better; he wouldn’t allow that to happen.

Baekhyun’s head fell on his chest. “I really want to go home.”

Chanyeol felt like crying. Chanyeol felt like screaming. Instead, he forced himself to look up - to Haze, before him.

“I should have done that before. Looking at him made me feel nostalgic, but it was useless to keep him. He is not my boy.”

_But he’s mine._

His guitar was on the floor at his side, the strap broken after Baekhyun had collided against him. The red lights were off, but perhaps it still worked. It had to, because he needed to fight. Because, in his arms, Baekhyun was still breathing and he didn’t know how long that would last.

“You’ve gone too far,” he whispered, placing the boy on the marble floor and reaching for his guitar before he faced Haze. “You don’t even realize what you’re doing to people, right? You don’t care.”

“I care for the greater good of _my world._ You would too, if you were in my place. You don’t understand what it means to be the chosen one.”

His power was still there, in an unstable, incomplete way, still adjusting to his blood and the beat of his soul. He had felt a peak of strength when he had broken the mirrors, but after the rise came the fall with it the exhaustion. Perhaps, if he was able to rest. Perhaps, if he had enough time and skill to break another mirror and ride the high before it faded.

He was in the middle of a fight he couldn’t win. And both he and Haze knew.

“You’re not chosen. You’re mad.”

“Visionaries have always been misunderstood. But of course, you would never understand. I’ve given you the choice to join me and rule, or to go home and surrender, and you have decided not to listen. You are the one who chose the path where he stands.”

“As you did.” Chanyeol focused on the buzz and the music. He had to do something, and he would only have a chance. His own melody shielded him, keeping him warm and awake - a music that was everywhere in the world, even when everything else was silence. _What do I do?_ He asked. _What should I do?_

Behind him, Baekhyun whimpered. He was awake, Chanyeol realized, his song wrapped around his own, calling him, calling. It was so weak it was almost inaudible, but it still was there.

“We are two sides of the same soul, but we’re not the same. That was a thing I learned when I first saw you. So you see, we’ve both chosen, yes, but your decision has to be mediocre while mine has been to become the force this world needs. It was a mistake on my side to offer you salvation: you chose the ugly reality over the ideal dream. And now, what do you have? Your mother is crazy, your best friend is infected and Baekhyun will die. It’s funny how your life is slowly becoming the mirror image of my own tragedy, huh?”

He had listened to Baekhyun’s song for such a long time since he had arrived that he could recognize it as soon as he heard. He could detect the little changes, the variations in the score. He was able to interpret them. Baekhyun had always kept secrets, but the melody in his soul had always been honest when one knew how to read.

And so he knew the boy was conscious, and asking something of him.

So he listened and played his part.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” he said. He reached inside himself, concentrating on the last remnants of his power. Every nerve protested, but the energy responded, and the pain beneath his ribs was sharp as the edges of a star, but he endured it with his best smile. “You control noise; I have music. You destroy and I protect: we’re opposites.”

Baekhyun’s song was faint but clear. He closed his eyes and turned the volume up.

“What—” Haze snapped. All the mirrors were vibrating behind him, under his command. Chanyeol wouldn’t have been able to break them fast enough to leave Haze defenseless. His power wasn’t exactly offensive, but Baekhyun could fight.

“Hello again, Your Exalted Majesty,” the boy said, standing on firm legs at Chanyeol’s side. His skin was still covered in sweat, a rain of silver-gold sparks coming from the broken generator in his chest, but he looked stronger than ever. Unleashed. “How have you been? I hope you’re fine.”

He rose his hands, turning incandescent, golden light beaming from the cracks on his skin. A glowing barrier formed around Chanyeol and him, so bright that the boy had to cover his eyes. Miasma around their feet curled and thinned, dissolved by the radiance around them. The world turned the color of gold as the sphere around them grew, consuming and purifying and leaving Chanyeol a little breathless.

Haze’s puppets had been standing, frozen, at the corners of the room, and the man screamed in rage when they all fell to the floor, their strings cut.

“Ah, are you angry about that?” Baekhyun asked with a short laugh. “Oops, sorry.”

He glanced towards Chanyeol, faint smile still on his lips, before throwing himself at Haze, cane forgotten somewhere on the floor, but hidden blades protruding from under his sleeves. They were longer now, brighter, edges of pure light. He was before Haze before the other man could send noise to stop him, his right blade tracing an arc shaped like a golden, crescent moon before sinking in the crook between Haze’s shoulder and neck.

Blood stained the white fabric red. Haze took a step back, shaking. Chanyeol could see a patch of skin now, as cracked as Baekhyun’s was, under his clothes.

He tried to reach for his powers to force the fallen people to escape, but he barely had any energy left.

 _“Run!”_ shouted Baekhyun. He was at his side in a second, grabbing his hand and _pulling_ , guiding him towards the door of the ballroom, across the hallway and out of the house. He was panting, too pale, but his grip was firm and his steps fast, and so Chanyeol didn’t ask and just followed, fighting the nausea to keep the rhythm.

The controlled citizens of Insomnia were still at the other side of the gate, but they weren’t fighting to get in anymore. Everything was still and quiet except for them, the two running shapes who made miasma dissolve with every step, two bright black spots in a world of shades of grey.

They were almost out of the South District when Baekhyun’s step faltered. It was only a small pause in his rhythm at first, but then he stumbled with his own feet, losing his balance. He collapsed without a single sound, dragging Chanyeol with him when he tried to hold him. They had been running a second ago, and in a heartbeat the gleam beneath Baekhyun’s skin had faded away and all that remained was a scared boy holding the limp body of a man so pale that he looked almost as a corpse.

The cracks were still there, darkened and ugly and terrifying. Chanyeol would have sworn he could see them getting wider by the second if he just stared.

“Baekhyun,” he called. “Baekhyun?!”

Sehun’s words, his insistence of not letting that boy use his powers, was booming in his head, loud and constant and horrible, the beat of a ritual drum before a sacrifice. The generator was broken, and Baekhyun’s powers had been unleashed, but at what price?

Baekhyun’s reflection was dead. The magitec thing in his chest had been keeping him alive.

“Home,” the boy mumbled again, voice so, so weak. “I want to go home.”

They didn’t have a place to go back to, not then, not in that city anymore, but Chanyeol did the best thing that he could. He tied the two ends of the broken strap of his guitar with a double knot so he could hang the thing from his back and then used his arms to press Baekhyun’s unconscious body against his chest. He got up. “Aren’t you a heavy idiot?” he whispered.

Then, he ran.

Out of the district, over the bridge across the Veil, whose waters were now pitch-black. Insomnia was covered in miasma and fallen, sleeping bodies. The city that never slept had turned into a ghost town where Haze, Baekhyun and him were the only living, moving men.

That was until he saw the masked man.

There was a figure, dressed in dark overalls, a grey thing that looked like a gas mask covering his whole face. He had been about to cross, but stopped in his tracks when he saw Chanyeol approaching. After a moment of silence, he gestured for him to come close.

And Chanyeol didn’t know if he was friend or foe, but he was tired and weak and he didn’t have anywhere else to go, so he took a step forward.

It was only when they were practically face to face that he recognized him.

 

* * *

 

 **Twelfth Act - Libera Me**  
 _Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa tremenda:_  
Quando cœli movendi sunt et terra.  
Dum veneris iudicare sæculum per ignem.

 

_He had loved him, despite everything, in that terrible, tragic way. Baekhyun had known, right from the first time he had set eyes on his other half._

_He had arrived to the place where he was being kept by pure chance - or maybe by destiny, because both of their souls were one thing and he had been_ drawn _there. The room had been hidden in the upper floors of Haze’s mansion, in the wing of the house he had been told never to visit. It had been warded, made soundproof and protected behind a sealed door, and still he had found it almost by instinct, every miasma lock that Haze had placed dissolving as soon as his light power touched it._

_After crossing the threshold, Baekhyun’s life had lost its meaning. Once he was at the other side of the door, he had learned to see by himself._

_He had been told that every person had a reflection, and Haze had told him that his was ‘gone’. He had never wondered what that meant - his mind spun too quickly sometimes, and was too sloppy when he was about to sleep - but he would have never, ever, expected to find a boy with his face and empty eyes locked away in the attic._

_He wore clothes too fine and too rumpled, sat on the bed in the middle of a room of black and blue silk that was starting to collect dust, a black-haired doll who was perfectly taken care of, but who had no one who would come to play with him._

_Baekhyun thought he wouldn’t react, but the boy tilted his head up as soon as he turned around to go._

_“He’s far too gone to be saved, you know?” he said. “He’s been too bad.”_

_In silence, Baekhyun had been doubting. He believed in the cause Haze whispered in his ear every night because it was so_ easy _to do so, but he had been questioning himself at night, when his eyes were about to close. A painless world sounded like the perfect place, but why did he feel like he was causing suffering instead of avoiding it. When he stopped to think (when he could think) he didn’t see_ happy _people after Haze’s wake. Only empty ones._

_Haze had told him he had chosen him. Haze always seemed so proud of his powers, of his conviction, of the way he fought to follow their dreams. But Haze planned and he followed. Haze never let him go out alone. Haze told him that he loved him with something akin to desperation but he didn’t want Baekhyun to talk about his previous life on the other side. He had never told him he kept a boy with his same face hidden like a dark little secret, a pretty songbird in a golden cage he hadn’t wanted Baekhyun to find._

_“You’re me,” he whispered, kneeling in front of the boy. He was black haired, dark eyed, unnaturally pale. He was so pretty and looked so dead. “Why does Haze keep you here? Why are you—”_

_“He could have been a good person. In another world. Not in this one, not in this one. Evil claimed him in this reality.”_

_“Hey,” Baekhyun whispered, holding one of his hands between his. They were cold, the skin of them starting to harden, nails polished like opaque glass. “Do you want to get out? Do you want me to take you out of this place? Haze’s not at home now, if you’re scared of him. He hurt you, right?”_

_“The city chose his mother. His mother chose to rule. His friends chose to fear him. The Blessed Order chose to hunt him. I chose to follow my duty. He chose to destroy. Perhaps Insomnia could have helped him instead of damning him. Or perhaps not. He turned me into no one but we can’t save everyone. That’s not what we are supposed to do. Should I have done something else? Should I have listened? Should I have killed him in his sleep so he wouldn’t have hurt my other half? Tell me, you.”_

_Baekhyun swallowed, hard. “He did this to you.”_

_“We can’t help but to destroy ourselves sometimes, but don’t ever love the things that’ll kill you.”_

_Baekhyun’s mind was clear, for the first time in months. It felt so strange to be faced with someone who wasn’t himself, but could have been. It was even stranger to realize that perhaps Haze had wanted them to be the same. He felt so cold, so sick, aware of his surroundings, like someone had suddenly woken him up from a pleasant dream by pushing him into cold water._

_He was scared to death, more than he had ever been._

_“What do I do?” he asked._

_“Someone stop him,” the boy with his face said, voice impossibly soft, eyes still empty. “He must be stopped. He needs to be stopped. He’s in great pain. Help him. Help Insomnia. There’s no redemption. Save my world. Save us all. Save me.”_

_“But how can I… How am I supposed to save you?”_

_For the first time, the other Baekhyun looked at him. He had little cracks around his eyes, like chips on porcelain. His gaze was so dark that made him shiver. “No one,” he whispered. “No one wants to die.”_

_“I—”_

_“The town must be saved. The mirrors must be broken. Be our savior. Be Insomnia’s savior and let it live. Be my savior and kill me when I’m not needed anymore.”_

_—_

Baekhyun tossed around, trying to break free, to let air in his lungs.

_Kill me._

He had done that by placing the knife in a broken boy’s hand and closing the door behind him. Even though he knew what would become of him.

_Be Insomnia’s savior._

He had accepted the burden, he had let Jongdae and Sehun open his chest, turn him into a magitec monstrosity so he could skip the judgement of the balance. He had remained alive, because Haze wasn’t dead.

_No one wants to die._

And he didn’t want to be cracked. He didn’t want to be a crippled, mutilated thing, but as long as the generator was in him, his own magic would be accepted. He had learned to love Insomnia, and learned to love the light that pulsed within him, but he’d been forced to choose. Using his power at its full extent would made the generator go into overload and break. Calling his light, even if it was a tiny bit of it, would affect its performance, breaking it little by little.

He had a time bomb in his chest. He could choose the torture to go on slowly or to finish things with a blast.

At least it was a choice he got to make.

There was a blurred black mask above him. There was pain in his chest. Voices. If they took the generator off, the pain would be gone, but his mission would fail. He didn’t want the pain, but he needed it. He’d recover. He always recovered.

“Baekhyun? Baekhyun!” a voice called him. It was like Haze’s voice but it was not. Haze’s voice had the edge and the coldness of a blade; that one was so warm. So he smiled. He wanted to hold onto that. To live. Just another day so he could see— “He’s breathing! Hurry up!”

“The generator is broken and the skin in his chest is too cracked. Even if he had another one…” the mask said.

“We _have_ another one! I’m telling you to put it in!”

He had cracks in his skin. He know what that meant. The balance was claiming him. It had finally reached his very core, after Baekhyun had sealed his fate by allowing his own reflection to be free. The other Baekhyun had wanted that, but never did.

“I—” he said. His throat was dry, words barely coming out. He had been running away from that - the white light at the end of the tunnel.

“He spoke!” not-Haze exclaimed. “He’s awake! Baekhyun!?”

He keeps calling for him, and that made him feel warm. He had asked him once, what it was what he wanted. What he really wanted.

If that was his last night on Earth, wouldn’t he ask for another day?

“Don’t let me…” he started. The mask was there, and a face. He couldn’t focus his gaze. His chest hurt. He was alive, if it pained him. “Please. Don’t let me die.”

The two voices were silent. There was an intake of breath, like someone was about to start crying. Baekhyun had always thought that no one would come to his funeral. Sehun, perhaps, but there was no trace of Sehun in the world.

“You heard him. Install it!” not-Haze said. “Install it!”

It was funny how different they were, and how his own reflection had been right, he thought. One reflection was too damaged, the kind that couldn’t be saved. The other was… Well. It was true that Park Chanyeol could have been a good person, in another world. Shaped by different choices.

“Hey,” he mumbled. “Hey. Have I ever told you that you’re like sunshine? After a Euphoria night.”

The world blurred. There were hands on his chest, warm and soft against hardened skin. Splintering was strange - you knew that the hard, cracked thing on your chest and hands and face was part of your body, but you couldn’t feel it as such. And so you didn’t want to see it, you didn’t want to touch it, because that couldn’t be you.

And still he felt the contact. He felt the hands around the metal of the generator above his still-beating heart.

“We spoke about this - I _can_ try, but I don’t know if he’ll be strong enough to take it. You have to understand that his state is delicate,” the mask protested.

“What I understand is that he’ll die for sure if you do nothing!”

 _That’s right,_ Baekhyun thought. _Don’t let me die. Let me stand by myself. Let me have another night on the face of Earth._

The hands on his chest hesitated, but gripped the metal in the end. Pulse firm, they twisted it, trying to pull the broken thing out.

He was almost gone, but he still parted his lips and screamed.

—

When he opened his eyes, his chest still hurt like hell.

There were bandages on his chest, he realized, draped tight over his skin. He moved his hand to touch them tentatively, pressing down on the covered skin only to find the shape of cracks beneath. He had more of them over his naked collarbone and going up his neck. They had gotten bigger, wider, and it felt strange to touch them, because he _could_ feel his fingers on his body to a certain extent but not as he should: it was the same sensation as placing one’s hand over a layer of dead skin.

He had almost died, that time.

And still, he should be weak, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t exist for long, if the power of the magitec generator wasn’t keeping his body stable, and Haze had made sure of breaking it, and yet the metal cylinder over his heart felt warm and buzzed, and he could breathe, and sit up, and stand.

He had the distant memory of Chanyeol and a masked man speaking about him, but he couldn’t recall what they had said. He had woken up healthier than he’d thought he’d be but with his head spinning, alone and covered by a blanket in what looked like Jongdae’s old metro car - weapons piled up at the corners and walls empty after Chanyeol and him had turned the thing on to go meet Haze at his home.

“He is better like this than awake, I can assure you that,” a voice said then, strangely metallic echo to it. Baekhyun kept very still, surveying the room around him. He felt the absence of the hidden blades he always carried like he was missing one of his own limbs, and let out a short, relieved breath when he saw them laying on the seat opposite to the one where he had been sleeping. Silently, he moved towards them, quickly fastening them closed over his forearms. He had no sleeves to hide them under, but he’d still have the surprise element if he moved fast.

“Can’t we… tie him up or something?” another person said, and Baekhyun recognized the voice that time. Chanyeol. Frowning, he approached the train doors. “I know he has tried to get to the surface every time he’s been conscious, but—”

The first thing Baekhyun saw when he looked out from the train doors was Chanyeol, with his back to him. The next one was a man in a grey, old fashioned suit with his face covered by a big, gas-like mask. It made him look like a fly; a menacing one, looming over the fallen body of the third person in the platform: an unconscious boy, tied up on the floor.

Baekhyun didn’t need to see his face to realize it was Sehun.

_Why is he—_

He didn’t have time to move, or to attack, or to say anything even, because, in front of him, Chanyeol froze and turned around. His eyes were big and round when he looked at him in the face.

“ _Baekhyun_ ,” he whispered, and the boy felt his stomach churn at the weight of the word. Chanyeol had dark circles under his eyes and the most scared expression Baekhyun had seen him sport ever.

“I’m okay,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to add. He had no shirt on, no eyepatch: he knew exactly what Chanyeol was seeing when he looked at him.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping? You almost— I only left you alone for half an hour, oh my god. Why are you awake and carrying weapons?”

“I always carry weapons,” said Baekhyun, simply.

“There is no need to worry, Mr. Park. Jongdae mentioned that his body would stabilize soon if it accepted the new generator. It seems like he was correct. I doubt that it takes more than a day for him to be at his usual capabilities.”

Chanyeol was soon on him, one hand of his shoulder, eyes dark and fixed on the blades over his wrists. Baekhyun allowed himself to lean onto him, if only a bit, but didn’t allow the warmth to distract him from the masked man. “Yixing?” he asked. “What are you wearing?”

“Jongdae’s invention. It filters the miasma, or at least part of it. As far as I know, it is not a definite solution, but it helps us resist the outbreak of Euphoria Syndrome.”

“Weren’t you…? Wasn’t Haze controlling you?”

“He changed tactics,” a different, metallic voice said, at the same moment a figure in black laborer’s clothes entered into the ruined train platform. He was also spotting a mask, but Baekhyun didn’t need to see his face to recognize him.

“Jongdae,” he called.

“I see you’re already recovering. Don’t force it, will you?”

“As I would,” replied Baekhyun with a smirk.

“I am serious, Byun. It was a miracle that your body didn’t reject what we installed on you. The skin in your chest is too splintered for a magitec generator to work well for long. Do you understand?”

Chanyeol squeezed his shoulder. Baekhyun didn’t feel like looking at him. “I’m here on borrowed time, right? What’s new about it?” He shrugged, body so used to deceit that the movement looked perfectly natural. “I’m thankful for your concern, but what do you mean Haze has changed tactics? He had half of the city under his control last time I was conscious enough to know.”

“That was two days ago,” replied Jongdae. “He brought people to him in the South District and infected them with Euphoria. Then he sent them back, right after you ran away and I found you.”

“He made them splinter and set them free all across Insomnia. I assume the Exalted is not directly controlling them anymore, but they are contagious,” added Yixing. “In his imprudence, that man has created the biggest outbreak of the sickness since it first came into existence.”

Right behind Baekhyun, Chanyeol clicked his tongue. “I don’t think Haze has made this out of imprudence. He needs energy, and the infected are his: he’ll take it from them and open wide the door between worlds.”

“The simple concept of it is foolish.”

“But it can be done. And he will. Open the gate, steal the energy in Baekhyun’s and my world and break the bond before the consequences of his actions over the balance destroy Insomnia as well.”

Finally, Baekhyun left Chanyeol’s side, going to the fallen figure of Sehun on the floor. Someone had tied the boy up and covered his face with another black mask, but he still was unconscious, as still as he had been when he was under Haze’s orders. “He didn’t recover when he was released from Soul Magic control, right?” he asked, kneeling on the dirty floor. He was sure that Haze had searched for that boy in the cobweb of souls in town. He knew what things Baekhyun cared for, and he had always done his best to take them away. “What’s wrong with him?”

“There’s not as much miasma down here as there is on the surface, but he still absorbs it and produces it. We put the mask on him as a means to slow down the process, but he still is—”

“Infected.” The word had the taste of poison in Baekhyun’s mind. “So I take the city is covered by miasma. What happened with the people?”

“Most of them are sick. I don’t know about the outskirts, but the main streets are full of laughing ghosts,” explained Jongdae with a sigh. “Some people hid on the old metro stations. I saw some of them this morning: they aren’t infected yet, but it won’t be long until the miasma comes underground. This battle is lost.”

“What about the marshal?”

“She’s invulnerable herself, but her army isn’t. _Wasn’t._ She mobilized her troops to stop people from going out, but her soldiers were on the street when the waves of miasma came. Last thing I know, she urgently left for Prosperity. Probably to request help, but…”

“And the Blessed Order?”

“Barricaded themselves underground. I went to see Do Kyungsoo myself while you recovered, but they have closed the gates.”

Baekhyun clicked his tongue. “So there they are, doing what they always did best. It’s so easy to love them sometimes.”

“They will be the ones to remain when everything else has fallen, but what purpose does that serve?” said Yixing, shaking his head. “And to think me and them were allies years ago.”

“There’s no point worrying about that,” stated Baekhyun. “Let’s move onto the important stuff. What is Haze doing?”

“He’s at home,” Jongdae replied. “He hasn’t gone out yet. That’s where he got all those… mirrors Chanyeol talked about, so it makes sense. His mansion is his sanctuary.”

“He’s charging himself up. Concentrating all the energy he needs in his mirrors,” added Chanyeol, face unusually stern. “I can hear the glasses vibrate. I’ve been doing it for quite some time. He’s not done but… He’ll be. Soon. And after that, well…”

Baekhyun placed a hand on Sehun’s chest. It was going up and down, up and down, like the boy was merely sleeping and not knocked unconscious. Less than a week ago, he had been okay. Less than a week ago, everything had been bad, but not as much. He wasn’t the type to allow himself to be hopeful, but he had seen some semblance of light at the end of the tunnel. “What now?” he asked. “Any ideas?”

Yixing’s gaze dropped to his feet. “I am afraid I don’t know what to do.”

“I just told you: we tried our best but this battle is lost,” added Jongdae. He sounded positively angry, but it was the kind of anger of the one who had tried and tried to give and hadn’t gotten a thing in return. “I did what I could, Byun: I fixed your body again to the best of my possibilities, but we’ve got four men and he has an entire city. We are relatively safe now, but for how long? The miasma will come down here and the moment there is too much in the air not even these masks will protect us.”

“Then what?” Baekhyun asked. He was so furious too - angry and sad and frustrated. He had fought so hard; he had given up his body, his soul and his world, and after Chanyeol had arrived everything had been going so well. He had thought they would be able to win. For a moment, he had believed in it, and he refused to let the idea go. He wasn’t ready for that. “Do we sit here and wait for our death?”

“We could run,” suggested Jongdae. “Like the marshal did. To the Prosperan Empire. Perhaps the Empress could help.”

“And surrender _Insomnia?“_

“Insomnia’s already lost.”

Chanyeol cleared his throat. “And what if we break the mirrors?”

All of the heads turned towards him. “What?” Jongdae snapped.

“If I got all this right, the miasma and sickness started as a consequence of the balance being broken, and it’s been getting worse because Haze has been messing with said balance more and more. So if we fixed the balance, or if we broke it completely, wouldn’t the two worlds stop influencing one another? And wouldn’t that mean the miasma and Euphoria Syndrome would stop?”

“It probably would, but you are one man,” conceded Yixing after a second of long, tense silence. “We discussed this before: a great quantity of energy is required to achieve something like that. It is not a simple feat, Mr. Park.”

Chanyeol shook his head. “No, listen to me. Haze has been collecting energy. That’s why he’s doing all this now. He almost has it.”

Baekhyun gasped, looking at the other boy with his eyes wide open.

 _“Haze_ has energy, not you,” Jongdae scoffed. “I know you two are reflections, but I don’t believe you have a common pool of strength, exactly?”

“No,” replied Chanyeol. “Of course not. But Yixing said this before and he’s right: Haze’s power peak comes from having as many active mirrors as possible. Mine happens the moment those mirrors break. Not when they are intact, not when they are broken, but in the exact second they crack. I won’t be strong enough before, and my body will be unstable and weak after, but in _that_ specific moment I’ll be at the top of the wave.”

“So you’ll be able to command that energy?”

“I’ll try.”

“Because of course the Exalted will let you. He’s too powerful now: he’ll give you the beating of your life before you can do anything of the sort.”

Baekhyun stood up. “Not if I’m there to stop him.”

Jongdae frowned at him. Yixing averted his gaze. Chanyeol swore - not on the stars, he never swore to the stars - and ran to him, tilting his head up so Baekhyun would have to look at him. “If you plan on using your power—” he started.

“Light magic is the best thing against miasma,” Baekhyun replied with a sigh. “You’ve seen that.”

“But if you unleash that power…”

“The generator in my chest will break. I know that, but so what? You’ve heard Jongdae: my chest is more splintered than not already, and look at my face - I have one blue eye and cracks all around it. That doesn’t sound very healthy anyway, now does it? The corruption has gone _that_ far in me, so what do I do, then? Do I hide underground, close my eyes and wait for the unavoidable or do I fight?”

Chanyeol stared at him for one long moment, and Baekhyun wondered if he was hearing something else, listening to that song only he could hear. Would he be able to hear something, over the noise of Haze’s mirrors, or was he only looking? Baekhyun was afraid to know, but at least his secrets were now in his face for everyone to see - the big ones, at least. The other boy smiled at him, sad. “You do fight, of course.”

“You get the mirrors, I get your evil twin.”

At their side, Jongdae huffed. “That’s all pretty cute, but you still don’t know if it’ll work. Maybe you’ll make the Exalted more powerful. Maybe you’ll make half of Insomnia explode if you try to… separate the worlds, or whatever it is you are hoping to achieve, and I don’t want to get caught in the blast.”

“Why are you so negative?” Chanyeol protested.

“It’s called _realistic.”_

Baekhyun stared at the fallen Sehun for a moment. He switched his gaze to the silent tunnels, then, and to the darkness beyond. He nodded to himself, clenching his hands. _That_ was the only way, he knew that much. “Jongdae, Yixing,” he called. “I need you two to go.”

Yixing turned towards him. “Baekhyun?”

“Carry Sehun and leave. Use the metro tunnels and get out of town. Get to Prosperity and tell the Empress about the mirrors Haze keeps here. Perhaps she will be… willing to send troops to break them if Chanyeol and I fail. It’s the only plan I can think of. We’ll give you time to leave. How many hours can we spare?”

“Haze’s mirrors keep charging,” Chanyeol said after a moment. “So I don’t know. They’ll be ready in half a day? Maybe less?”

Baekhyun nodded. “Seven hours. You have seven hours to escape. Then we’ll go for Haze. Is that okay with you?”

Yixing looked torn, eyes traveling from Baekhyun to Jongdae under the sockets of his gas mask. “You have to be careful. That all sounds like a call for suicide.”

Among all things, Baekhyun had the actual nerve to laugh. “Maybe. But no one wants to die, you know? So if I have to go, at least I’ll do it by punching the Reaper in the face.”

—

They had been left alone, and the old metro car was silent. Too quiet for Baekhyun’s last night in Insomnia City. A place that never, ever slept - just like him.

There were no mirrors in that town, he had personally seen to that, but if he looked hard enough he could see his reflection in the darkened glasses of the train window: a boy with mismatched eyes and cracks in his face, who would be facing his last battle in a matter of hours.

“Shouldn’t you sleep?” a voice asked next to him.

Baekhyun would almost have laughed. Like he could sleep at a time like that, with Haze shrouding Insomnia in poison and the generator humming in his chest. Like any of them could, in fact. But the thing with Chanyeol was that he always was so soft.

“Huh-huh, not really. I want to enjoy this, you know?”

“This _what,_ exactly?”

“This moment.”

“The suffocating wait at Insomnia’s dark depths?” Chanyeol was smiling too, when Baekhyun turned to look at him. He stretched his hand towards him, as if to playfully hit Baekhyun in the shoulder, but he stopped himself before there was any semblance of contact.

It seemed like a century ago when that boy had arrived at Insomnia and he had thought it was a terrible chore, having to feign sympathy towards him. He had never considered placing being a good person at the top of his list of priorities, but he realized that there had been many occasions when he hadn’t been exactly nice to Chanyeol in those last weeks.

There was only one thing that had been asked of him.

“I… No, not that,” he replied, and he found himself laughing out loud, a bit nostalgically. “It’s just that I’ve been in Insomnia for years now, and despite everything I’ve loved this city. And now things are gonna be over, and I don’t know how that’ll go for me but it’s kind of like the end of an era. A very important one.”

Chanyeol nodded, slowly. He looked scared, and twitchy, even though he was trying so obviously and hard to sit still. “Finally the big boss fight, huh?”

“Either we win or the city falls, yeah. So you know, no pressure.”

“No pressure, no. Which reminds me that, by the way, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be facing my final boss battle without a proper weapon. Maybe I should have told you before Jongdae and the others left, but it slipped my mind.”

“What happened to your guitar?”

“We had to take the generator out.”

Baekhyun closed his eyes, leaning his head on the cold window behind him. “Ah.”

“I still have my song, though. The guitar helped me when it came to making it louder, but it was me who listened all the time. That hasn’t changed.”

“You’ll be fine. You always are.”

“You think so?”

All his life, Baekhyun had smiled a lot to try to make himself believe that he wasn’t lonely. He was glad he had reached the moment when he wasn’t anymore, but he didn’t exactly know what facial expression went with that.

How in the world was someone honest? He had always felt that it was easier to change reality than to stare at it in the face.

“You know what?” Chanyeol said then, his voice so pleasant over the silence. “There was a long time in my life when I thought I was the unluckiest man in the world. I always got the units I hadn’t studied in exams, decided to wait in the longest supermarket line, never bought raffle tickets when it hit for my friends… Stuff like that.”

The world was ending, but that boy always rambled when he was nervous. Baekhyun smiled to himself, and for once he didn’t try to hide it. Those were the perks of the apocalypse. “Had you ever thought that you were maybe causing it, to an extent? You’re a Soul Mage, and a powerful one at that. So maybe you believed in your own unluckiness so much that you were influencing people around you without realizing or something. That would be… interesting.”

“It was bad enough with me not causing it, shut up!” When Baekhyun looked at him, Chanyeol’s eyes were so comically open that he had to laugh. Oh, he really wanted to kiss him so much, and he didn’t know if he was allowed.

“Consider it.”

“No way!” Chanyeol took a deep breath. “But anyway. What I wanted to say with all this was that I felt unlucky most of the time, and that also part of me was scared because I thought that the music I heard was some kind of sign of me being as sick as my mother was but… I also felt blessed, deep down. Because I had that sound in me and it made sense. Because that maybe meant I was a genius, you know? I had that music, and it was mine, and no one would ever take it away from me.”

“I don’t know if this is what you want me to say, but you were right about having a special talent.”

“Yeah. Soul Melody. Murder Melody. Haze said it could be either.”

“And which one is it?”

“None? Or one of them? Both? The music is too loud, and always the same. It depends on how I face the pull.”

Baekhyun nodded as Chanyeol fell into comfortable silence. He parted his lips and he closed them, then parted them again. “I understand the struggle,” he admitted. “There were many things that I wanted when Haze came for me. To run away. To start again. To rule the world. To be gone. The worst part for me, when I thought about it all after, was that I did many things and never truly knew what part was manipulation and what part I really wanted to do. That and that I crossed the mirror and never said goodbye. I wonder how my family is. Will their reflections also be involved in this mess?”

Baekhyun had had a house, and a mother, a father, a brother and a dog. They didn’t live in a city of black steel and glass, but he wished he could see the metropolis at the other side of the looking glass one more time. A farewell gift.

“You should go visit them, if you miss them, once we’re back.”

“You should go, on my behalf. I’ll write the address down for you if Jongdae has paper here. Tell them their son misses their Thursday movie nights, and their amusement park tours in summer.”

That time, Chanyeol _did_ touch him, closing his fingers around Baekhyun’s arm, turning him around to face him. He looked dead serious, and scared, and sad. He was always so lovely. “We can go together,” he affirmed, like he was so certain.

“I have a ticking bomb in my chest, Chanyeol.”

The other boy’s eyes went from his eyes to his neck, traveling along the lines of cracks until he lost them beneath the collar of his shirt. “I thought you were planning to make it explode,” he said. “That’ll take any traces of magitec off your body. Once the generator’s gone, you _can_ cross, Baekhyun.”

 _Will I last that long?_ Baekhyun thought. He didn’t say it. “I have to end Haze.”

“I know that. And don’t you dare to hold back. But after that…”

After. “How can you be such an optimist about all this?”

“I am not. I am just hopeful. Because someone has to, remember?”

Baekhyun felt something inside of him break. Only to be reforged anew, cracks mended with gold.

“So you’re the hopeful one. Then who am I?” he whispered. _What do you hear when you listen to my song?_

Chanyeol’s smile was the brightest thing he had ever seen. “You’re obviously the warrior,” he replied. “So you know, Byun, wear your scars with pride.”

At first, Baekhyun said nothing. Then he leaned forward and kissed him.

That has happened one time before and he had screwed up and Chanyeol had rejected him, and he didn’t know if he was allowed to do that, or supposed to do it when the world was ending, but Chanyeol had asked him what he wanted once, and he wanted _that_ so much that he felt like dying.

He was half expecting the other boy to push him away, but every protest in his own head went silent when Chanyeol actually kissed him back, letting his mouth fall open and dragging him atop of him on the old train seat until Baekhyun was straddling him, thighs at the sides of his hips. He moaned when Baekhyun bit his lip, all low and raw and needy, and the boy felt the sound of it resonate in his blood, setting his hair on edge and his skin on fire.

 _“Baekhyun,”_ Chanyeol called him, a plea, when they broke apart to breathe. And Baekhyun was relishing in that: the hotness of skin on skin, the breathless pant on his lips, the taste of saliva and the want. He had forgotten and needed to remember. He wanted Chanyeol to feel good.

He placed a finger on his lips when the other boy went to speak. “I told you once there were things I was keeping for myself,” he whispered, so close to his lips that they were almost kissing again. “I hid which world I was from. I hid that my reflection was dead and that I was dying. But.” He closed his eyes when Chanyeol tried to speak. “There was another thing.”

“What?”

 _“You.”_ That time, Baekhyun kissed him, pressing against him when Chanyeol’s hands went from his face to his shoulders to his waist to his ass. He whimpered, head reeling, hiding his face hidden in Chanyeol’s neck. “You told me you wanted me to go back with you and I want to. I am not supposed to but I do. That world, the other side, I really—”

“Then don’t _die_ on me, Byun,” Chanyeol cut him, half an order and half a prayer. He kept him steady with one hand, the other one traveling to his face when Baekhyun moved back to stare at him.

“I’ll try?” he replied with a short laugh that died in his mouth when the tip of Chanyeol’s finger grazed the biggest crack on his cheek. His skin was dead here, insensitive, but he felt the touch deep down, in the pulsing flesh beneath. There was a _pull_ in him, in his heart and in his stomach and in the blood of his veins that brought him towards Chanyeol like a magnet. Haze’s had cold eyes of the sharp black of Insomnian glass, but Chanyeol’s were brown and warm like the autumn back at home. He sucked in a shaky breath when the boy went to kiss him along the crack, from his cheek to his jaw to his neck. He had to bite his lip not to scream when Chanyeol bit on the tender skin of his non-deformed collarbone.

He squirmed, hands going to the buttons on his own shirt, unfastening them so fast he almost ripped one off. He wanted his clothes to be gone, before he could think about it. Besides Jongdae, he hadn’t let no one seen him since the first time he had gotten a generator installed. It had been his shame and his cross to bear, but he was tired, and hard, and more awake than ever, and if the end of the world was coming, he wanted to face it with no regrets.

“Is that okay?” Chanyeol asked. He was staring at the bandages is chest. “You were about to die days ago, maybe we shouldn’t—”

“I am high on magitec. And I break easily, but I recover faster. I am okay, more than okay. You are not going to kill me with pre-apocalyptic sex. Okay?”

“Okay.” Chanyeol breathed in as Baekhyun’s shirt fell from his shoulders. He held the boy’s right hand, turning it around until the clasps that tied the hidden blades to his forearm were in sight, and Baekhyun felt the sudden urge to press his arm to his chest, to run away from the intimacy of the gesture and remain dressed, concealed.

Only, he didn’t want to.

He felt so dizzy when one of the blades hit the metallic floor, and so light when the second one joined it. Chanyeol was staring at him, pupils blown and breath ragged on his lips. He hadn’t been touched, yet.

“You’re really so beautiful, you know?” Baekhyun muttered, because he couldn’t think of a truer thing to say in that moment.

Chanyeol carried him up, until they both were standing. “Take that off,” he said, the smallest hint of command in his voice, hands already on the button of his pants. Baekhyun’s whole body reacted, tension was giving to electricity and insecurity to something close to desperation as he went to practically rip Chanyeol’s shirt off, buttons flying everywhere when he pulled it open. Chanyeol grunted something intelligible as he threw him back onto the seat, parting his lips when they met Baekhyun’s and sucking his tongue into his mouth.

The pressure in Baekhyun’s chest grew so much that it threatened to crush him. He dug his nails into Chanyeol’s back, so deep that he was sure he was going to drawn blood, and he didn’t care because Chanyeol was moaning and Baekhyun wanted him to make that sound again, all needy and wrecked. He wanted Chanyeol to kiss him, just like that, lips going down from his mouth to his neck and his chest, over the bandages and on the unmarked skin below, as he sucked on the dips between his lower ribs. His heart was drumming in this chest like a caged bird, flapping his wings as it tried to break free.

Because that, he thought as Chanyeol kneeled between his spread legs, was only a heartbeat of what could have been if both of them had stayed at the other side of the mirror. Two boys who would have met each other at university, or in the street. The kind of boys who had an eternity and not a countdown. The kind of boys who wouldn’t ever have to say goodbye if it wasn’t by choice.

He bit back tears as Chanyeol sucked on the skin of his inner thigh. He screamed and arched his back on the slippery leather of the train seat when the boy took him into his mouth.

“Oh, stars, _fuck,”_ he muttered. He was so overwhelmed, he felt so _good_ , last strands of control flying away in a wave of red and white as he was taken whole. There was hands on his hips, keeping him in place as Chanyeol hollowed his cheeks and flattened his tongue, and Baekhyun realized that he had been thrusting, all messy and arrhythmic and out of control. He was so close to the edge and he wanted a free fall. He wanted it to last. He shuddered, eyes closed and nails digging crescents in Chanyeol’s scalp as he tried to find purchase. “Wait, I’m gonna—” he whispered.

Chanyeol let go of him only the second it took him to speak. “Then do,” he said, and he sounded so certain and so breathless, and he was looking straight at him when Baekhyun opened his eyes, and so he tilted his head back and orgasmed as soon as Chanyeol took him again, so fast and so sudden, dissolving his conscience into a wave of white.

When he came down from his high, he already felt the soreness in his throat and the cold of the lack of hands on his skin. He shuddered, fighting to focus his vision, and the first thing he saw was Chanyeol’s shit-eating grin as he cleaned the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

“Did you just…?” Baekhyun asked, and Chanyeol simply shrugged. “Oh god, come here.”

Chanyeol did, and the urgency should have been gone, but the clock kept ticking and dawn was closer than it should be. “Do you realize you’re switching deities when you swear?”

“Stars, shut up,” he replied. He could taste himself in Chanyeol’s mouth, and the thought of it, and the warmth of the hands on his skin were making the pressure come back. Chanyeol’s cock was hard and heavy against his thigh, even through the fabric of the pants that he was still wearing, and he felt dizzy all over. “I want to ride you.”

Chanyeol’s pupils were blown wide when he stared down at him. _“Fuck,”_ he growled, frowning right after. “Baekhyun, that’s not— There’s no lube here, you can’t—”

“I’m okay and I want to. It’s fine.”

“But if it’s gonna hurt you, I—”

“We don’t need it, I can take it.” Baekhyun smiled, tracing the shape of Chanyeol’s lips with his thumb. If he could have a last wish that night, and if he were only to choose things that were at the reach of his hand, he would beg to have that. “I can just get you off if you don’t want me, but…”

“Of course I want you,” Chanyeol replied, and he sounded so certain that the mere words let him all breathless. “What I don’t want is for you to be in pain because of this.”

_“Please.”_

The fight went partially out of Chanyeol’s eyes as he leaned down to kiss him. “Are you really sure?” he asked against his lips, in a question that died in a whimper when Baekhyun slipped one hand inside his pants. He was so hot, and so sensitive and Baekhyun felt so ridiculously happy.

“Off with these,” he whispered after a moment, tugging at Chanyeol’s pants. “And sit down, will you?”

Baekhyun decided he liked straddling Chanyeol. He loved to have him looking up at him instead of how it usually was, loved the expression on his face as he stared at him, flushed and breathless. It felt like control without control, like riding a wave and let it pull him under all the same, lips on lips and skin on skin. Chanyeol’s hands were so warm, so he smiled when he held one of them and took it to his mouth.

“You do it?” he asked, parting his lips and giving the tip of a finger a small, kittenish lick. He felt Chanyeol’s dick twitching under him, and his grin grew into a full smirk. “So you have a finger-in-mouth kink, ah?”

He had just been teasing, but the moan that came out Chanyeol’s mouth when he said it was so roughly _desperate_ that he felt all of the nerves in his body burn. He needed that, for Chanyeol to do it again, for him to lose his mind until he could not think about anything else that wasn’t _them_ and _now_ , so he stared at him in the eye as he went down on his fingers, curling his tongue around them and coating them with saliva until they were all wet, and slick, and Chanyeol looked all flush under him.

“Now in me,” Baekhyun whispered, kissing him again, just because he _was_ allowed.

It hurt, and he knew it was going to, but he almost welcomed the pain as the first finger breached his rim. He leaned forward, nails digging in Chanyeol’s shoulders, face hidden in the crook of his neck. He whimpered and bit the skin, hard, as his body relaxed and started opening and his heart burned in his chest. He had wanted that so much and he was getting it, and nothing else existed in the world except that moment in the semi-darkness, and Chanyeol’s fingers in him.

“Hurry,” he urged, groaning out loud when Chanyeol literally tsk-ed in his ear at the haste. “Hurry up.”

“Impatient, are we? I’ll take note of that, for other… occasions.”

He timed that last word with a press in a spot somewhere inside him, and Baekhyun arched his back with a scream. Everything burned so much that his own vision was fading in a cloud of red and white, pleasure and need and pain together in one giant knot in his chest, about to be unleashed. He had three fingers inside him but he still felt so empty.

“Get in me now.”

“Not yet.” Chanyeol’s fingers stayed where they were, scissoring him open until his body gave in and he was wrecked and hard and so oversensitive that he thought he would come for a second time. He complained with a whimper when he felt the other boy withdraw, and the need he had for that was way too much, so he got into position a little too fast, thighs shaking and Chanyeol’s hand steadying him in place before he went down.

 _“Oh, fuck,”_ Chanyeol groaned under him, voice so unguarded and so raw, but Baekhyun could barely hear him. He had gone too fast, and it hurt so much he thought he had managed to split himself into two, and he didn’t realize he was shaking all over until he felt Chanyeol keeping him in place. “Slow now.”

He was going to cry. He felt that he wouldn’t be blamed if he did. He had bottomed out and Chanyeol was kissing his face, so he perhaps was, after all.

“Impatient _and_ stubborn,” Chanyeol murmured, almost to himself. The pain had eased into a dull burn, so Baekhyun tentatively moved his hips, grinning through his own panting breaths when the other boy moaned, so loud, and the first waves of pleasure and pain hit him. Chanyeol pulled him close to kiss him, open mouthed and desperate, as they picked up the pace, and the pain was gone, and Baekhyun felt so good, and he wanted it faster, and hotter, and _now._ His nails found skin again, sinking in and leaving parallel red trails. If Chanyeol was going back - and he _was_ going back - it was going to be with Baekhyun’s nails and lips and breath imprinted on his skin. So he would remember him, feel him in his body, until every mark finally faded and the dream was gone.

He drew back a bit, cracks slightly golden on his skin because he wanted Chanyeol to _see them._ He did, and he moved forward to kiss him with such fervor that they suddenly lost their balance, and Baekhyun found himself with his back to the metal floor. It should have been cold, but he couldn’t feel it. Instead of that, he was too hot, and too happy, and Chanyeol was out of him and that couldn’t be because he was so impatient as well, so he reached out.

Chanyeol was all over him, and he stared down at his face. He was a total mess, of the good kind. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Baekhyun could barely find his voice, but he still laughed. And he meant it. “So alive. I feel so alive.”

His lips parted in a silent scream when he was filled once more.

And Baekhyun had always liked his sex rough and hard, the kind that was fast and left him sore and satisfied and with no space in his mind to think, but that time he was fully awake, all of his nerves ablaze beneath his skin, caught in a moment that felt like an overwhelming, different kind of intense.

He wanted that memory, that one, when the morning brought the end of the world, and so he dug his fingers into Chanyeol’s black hair, tried to find a purchase on his shoulders and back and circled his waist with his legs, calling his name with a voiceless cadence over and over, and too far gone to listen to the things Chanyeol was murmuring in his ear. It was so hard to breathe, sensation so strong, the whole weight of his burdens replaced by a feeling so warm he wanted to cry out.

He did, choking between a moan and a sob when Chanyeol reached between them and wrapped his fingers around his cock.

Their rhythm had faltered, an erratic mess, but it didn’t matter, he didn’t care. Baekhyun tilted his hips up higher at the same time Chanyeol caught his gaze. _Close,_ he thought. Chanyeol stared down at him, cheeks flushed and eyes dark. “I’m taking you home,” he murmured.

And it was so simple and so warm, and the pressure was so crushing that Baekhyun felt himself reaching the edge, toppling it with such force that his back arched against Chanyeol and his vision whited out. He was being fucked through it all, so hard, after Chanyeol orgasmed too, still inside him, and Baekhyun shuddered, brain reeling.

He wanted that.

It was already done, but he wanted it still.

He wanted it.

He wanted to go home.

He didn’t want to die.

—

He tried to stay awake, even hours later, as Chanyeol sleepily traced the shape of the cracks on his skin with his fingers. It felt… nice, actually, and he smiled even though he knew the other boy had his eyes closed. He had been drifting on and off of sleep for the last hours, with his head on Baekhyun’s shoulder and his other hand around his waist.

For years, before he came to Insomnia he had been waiting for someone to save him, and after that, when he had learned to fight for himself he had covered his scars, because they were the visible signs of wounds he didn’t want others to see.

His battles were his to win, and he was about to march for war, and for the first time, he wasn’t afraid to let them show. No one would save him, but he didn’t need them to. The only thing he wanted was a hand to take him home, and a world who would welcome a boy who had mended his own cracks, not in black and white but with golden light.

 

* * *

 

 **Thirteenth Act - In Paradisum**  
 _In paradisum deducant te Angeli:_  
in tuo adventu suscipiant te Martyres,  
et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Ierusalem.

 

The whole of Insomnia was immobile and grey, buzzing with a low, electric hum that was making Chanyeol’s hair stay on end. They saw people as they walked, across the bridge over Veil river and into the Southern District, splintered ghosts walking through grey clouds of miasma, some laughing, some gazing at them with empty eyes as they passed, some leaning against the walls like broken things.

 _It’s all because of Haze’s magic and his way of disturbing the balance,_ Chanyeol tried to remind himself. _Put an end to what your reflection is doing, break the bond between our two worlds and the miasma will go and they’ll be okay._

All of them would. Even Baekhyun, who was not a soulless puppet like the other infected but was still sick in his own way and dying.

“I will go all out,” he had told him while he buttoned his shirt that morning. He didn’t look all proper anymore now that he didn’t have anything else to hide, and he stared at Chanyeol right in the face with those wild, mismatched eyes of his. “I will unleash all the power I have from the very beginning. I will keep him busy, I’ll fight: the mirrors are all yours. Do what you have to.”

Chanyeol was aware that, no matter how confident he seemed, Baekhyun was ready for a sacrifice. He trusted Chanyeol’s strength, even when it came to a task as big as chain-breaking a full room full of mirrors, weaponless, and separating the Soulstreams of two worlds. He hadn’t realized yet that, if one of them was going to burn out and be consumed, it would probably be Chanyeol and not him.

“We’ll both do.”

The buzz at Haze’s white manor was so loud that Chanyeol thought that his head was going to explode. The music still resounded below, however, and focusing on it helped him to advance with his head high across the dead gardens and empty corridors. There was no party inside of the house that time, no dancers on the floor nor music on the stage: there was only the man himself, with their back to them, and resting his hands on the railing of the balcony of his mirror room. His personal garden was below, a cemetery of rotten trees around the circle of the lake where he and the Insomnian reflection of Baekhyun had trained and kissed and fought to death. Haze’s back looked too white over the colorless landscape - a king among the ruins of his fallen empire.

“So you’ve come,” he said, without turning around to look at them. The buzzing sound was coming from the mirrors in the room, all of them vibrating in unison, but his voice was so clearly hearable over them, like it was one with the noise. “I thought I wouldn’t see you again after you ran away. And ah, that didn’t sound like fun.”

“We didn’t run,” Baekhyun replied. Haze chuckled and slowly, finally faced them, amused little smirk in his mouth as he finally stared over at them.

“Baekhyunnie, look at your skin. Haven’t you been overworking yourself too much lately, little boy?”

“Why? Are you concerned about me?”

“About _you?_ You’re quite the sweet mistake, but not really. However, I wanted you to see it. This. What I can achieve.”

“Turning a beautiful city into a zombie playground? If that’s what you were going for, congratulations.”

Haze sighed and walked into the room from the balcony, the long tails of his coat floating around his legs as he moved. His steps were eerily silent on the marble floor, but all of his being was surrounded by noise. It connected him to the mirrors, Chanyeol realized - there were invisible, buzzing threads, from the looking glasses to Haze, like a giant cobweb with him at the center.

_He’s almost ready._

“You know what was always wrong about you? Stars know I tried to shape you so you would understand, but your mind was always too… _simple_. My Baekhyun was conditioned from birth to believe in what the Blessed Order taught him, which ended in him choosing them over me, but you? Your mind was clean when I brought you here. And still you chose to deny me and to die for it. You were offered a chance to change the world and you rejected it. Even though you understood what it meant to be in pain.”

“And just because I understood it it had to mean that I didn’t want it?” Baekhyun’s hands pulsed in gold, once, and Chanyeol knew he had to be prepared. He had a task to do, and it started by cutting Haze from the threads that were feeding him energy, but he didn’t know what to do besides that. _Help me,_ he begged to his song. _Help me with this._ “My feelings are a part of me. They are a part of _everyone_! Aren’t you seeing what happens when you take them by force?”

“The city is as it is because my method is imperfect. As soon as I have the energy I lack, every person will be correctly fixed. And they will thank me, as their savior. They will sing anthems in my honor: Lord Haze, the chosen who vanquished all suffering.”

Baekhyun clenched his fingers at his sides. “Has someone ever told you that you’re very wrong in the head?”

“Your vision, my boy, is too narrow. But not only yours, I’m afraid. Of course, you came together with my dearest reflection. How disappointing you are, for someone who has the same soul as I do.”

“I could say the same thing,” groaned Chanyeol through clenched teeth.

“You should have let me in when you could,” Haze continued. “And even after that, you could have chosen to return to the place where you belong and waited for your death among your loved ones. But alas, you are here instead. An spectator to my long-awaited finale: the final act of a requiem, and a genesis. You will be the first to see - and oh, how much better all this things get when you have an attentive public to watch.”

“Do you know what is the worst part of this all?” Chanyeol said. Baekhyun’s hands were pulsing again, light climbing through his arms, steadily turning his skin into shining gold. “That every time you speak, you sound like an egocentric megalomaniac, and that _is_ cringey as hell.”

“The world is mine,” Haze stated.

Baekhyun let the light engulf his own body and threw himself at him with a scream.

His hidden blades were out, protruding from his sleeves and shining, surrounded by what looked like solidified light. The edges gleamed, sharp enough to cut diamond into dust, Haze didn’t even move an inch when he saw him coming close. He stood where he was, back straight and lips still curved in his ever-present smirk as the weapons collided against some kind of invisible and solid force, the force of the impact throwing Baekhyun back through the air.

“What—” The boy managed to land on his two feet, breathing heavily. Haze used to have a shield before, the one he had shared with Chanyeol and had burned everyone who wanted to hurt him, but that was a different thing entirely.

Chanyeol narrowed his eyes. It couldn’t be. “It’s the noise.”

Baekhyun looked back at him. “He’s using the noise to cover himself?!”

“Ah, with this amount of energy I can do much more than that.”

Haze snapped his fingers and Baekhyun fell to the ground with a scream. Chanyeol gasped and ran to him, but before he could have taken half a dozen of steps, the boy’s body moved, as grotesquely as a puppet under strings. Feeling a small rush of panic, he raised his eyes to Baekhyun’s face, but he found shock and fear instead of emptiness . It was then when he sensed them: the threads of noise, not in his mind, but around Baekhyun’s arms and legs, buzzing as they sucked his light in.

Chanyeol couldn’t see them exactly, but he _felt_ them, and so he close his eyes trying to command them to break. The noise was definitely not his to control, however, and Haze laughed before the threads wrapped like vines around his arms and legs as well, making him raise his hands up in the air, defenseless.

“Thank the kind people of Insomnia,” Haze purred, and when Chanyeol opened his eyes, he saw him whispering the words in Baekhyun’s ears. The boy was struggling, skin lit and magitec generator already so hot that it was starting to burn through his shirt, dissolving the miasma that came out Haze’s mouth and fingers and skin.

Chanyeol knew that the light was strong enough to defeat the poison, but he wasn't sure about the noise and its strength. That should be his thing, it was supposed to be so, but there he was, all tied up because the music was so faint and he didn’t have a guitar to amplify the sound.

_I didn’t need it before. I should not need it, but—_

Haze was walking back to the center of the room, the buzz so loud around him that Chanyeol felt like someone was stabbing his brain with a hot, sharp knife. He had to think, he needed to concentrate, it was important that he tried, and more important that he _succeeded._ He had told Baekhyun the night before that he would get him home. And at whatever the cost, he wanted to. He want that boy to go back to a world where people would be healthy and okay and _alive._

He needed to fight for everyone.

“I wondered for such a long time how to do something like this,” Haze was saying. When Chanyeol looked, he sensed the noise taking hold, cocooning him, and in the next second his feet had lifted from the floor. He went up, up, smiling widely, until he was floating in mid-air, exactly at the center of the ballroom, amid and connected to all the mirrors that remained. Chanyeol had to break down those, somehow, all at the same time. That was the plan, and his last chance, but even then he didn’t know how to do it exactly. So he hummed, so low, trying to call the faint music out. “How does someone open a gate between words so wide that all the energy comes rushing in? But then I realized something: I am a special creature, the chosen one. One of a kind. Mirror Traveling allows its users to open doors in the Soulstream; while Soul Magic controls emotions and feelings - the core of the Soulstream itself. The ancient Blessed connected the two worlds by using their own soul’s energy to manipulate, open and bind the Soulstreams of two different realities, but I don’t need to rely on my own, limited strength. Soul Magic is mine to command, after all, and mirrors are linked to me. There is noise _everywhere,_ a hearable manifestation of the souls of both the world and the people who inhabit it. I only need to reach for it and make a call, and every gate in my way will open for me.”

Baekhyun’s light was so bright as he struggled in his invisible ties. “Stop it!” he called out.

His music was so loud, both piercing and soothing in Chanyeol’s head. Violins, repeating the same tune, over and over again - the cry, the war song, the melody unleashed, the suffocating lullaby turned powerballad, so different from the song that was always with him but also the same, deep at its core. It felt like an outstretched hand, and Chanyeol forced himself to stare at Haze in the face while he took it.

There was noise everywhere. Everywhere. But if he used Baekhyun’s song as a guide, he could also hear the music.

“Behold now!” his reflection exclaimed as the energy holding him in place turned visible, a pulsating conduit between the mirrors and his body. “This is the Soulstream, and it will follow my orders. As I stand here doors will open for me. This city, this _world_ , are about to change!”

The sensation hit Chanyeol before the he could see it, a wave of nausea so hard that his whole body bent forward in a spasm.

“Chanyeol!” Baekhyun called him, generator burning but still not broken. He would be the most powerful when it was. And yet, they had no time, no time, no time.

“The mirrors!” he shouted.

The surfaces of all of them were undulating, rippling in their frames as if they were part of the same surface of water. Exactly like every time Chanyeol had hummed to mirrors as a child to open window, or when he played his guitar to break them - mirror and Soul Magic combined. But Haze wasn’t doing it as he did it, limited and controlled and partly afraid; instead, he was pouring in all the energy he had gathered, with such a force that the glasses all around him looked aflame, so bright on the walls of the white room.

When the mirrors started to give in, however, the first thing that Chanyeol felt was a gust of frozen, energy-charged wind on his face.

He could see the Soulstream, a force born at the other side of the mirror and connecting Insomnia to his world and it looked like an aurora borealis - multicolored light that filled the room, and poured out the windows, and connected Haze and him.

It was a beautiful vision, so enrapturing that even Baekhyun stopped to struggle and gazed up when the iridescent gleam cut through the miasma, but the wind should have been warm, not cold. Not like that.

“Haze!”

“Do you see this?” the man said, signaling at the thick ray of light that linked them. “This is the manifestation of the balance that keeps us tied. This is the key that will allow me to turn my dreams into a new world!”

“Wait, no!”

“Come to me!”

Haze rose his hands higher. Chanyeol choked on his breath. His reflection’s body had started buzzing, and the aurora was pulsing and surrounding him, bathing him in winter-cold light. He could still hear Baekhyun’s song, loud and clear, but his body was suddenly frozen and paralyzed, so weak that he could barely move. He tried to reach for his inner energy and what he found was a void: the whirlwind of his own strength, taken away by the Soulstream glow.

To Haze.

“You see? If you don’t let me in, I’ll be the one to take out every inch of what you have and that doesn’t belong to you. Both from you and from your world.”

He closed his eyes, clenching his teeth to keep a pained scream inside his throat. It hurt, like someone was stabbing him with shards of ice. His nerves screamed and his mind was reeling, thinking too fast and too incoherently for him to catch up. He was going to die. If he did nothing, he would die and his world would follow: the place that had seen him grow and the city where his friends and his mother lived would disappear, frozen in time and space.

He tried to move, one step forward, but the threads of noise keeping him in place didn’t give in. Baekhyun was calling him, voice so loud and song so clear, and Chanyeol opened his eyes groggily, blinking to focus them on the boy. He felt so weak and still Baekhyun stood there struggling, as strong as ever. He had no iridescent glow on him, no Soulstream link to connect him to the other half he had already lost.

He was clean. He was still strong. He had his own light.

_So that’s how it is._

Chanyeol had still energy enough to act, once, only once. So he closed his eyes, and let himself be surrounded by Baekhyun’s violin music. He felt the thread, all around him, a variation of the Soul Melody. He grabbed it. He hummed along and sensed the white noise around him. Haze had tied them down well, but he was now controlling the Soulstream of two whole worlds above their heads and he was only human. So he focused on Baekhyun’s song, ordered it to get loud. _Overcome the noise_ , he thought.

The violins shrilled. Chanyeol’s legs failed him and he fell to the floor, tied still by the noise. Baekhyun screamed something, and the boy heard steps coming towards him, and he knew he had succeeded much before he saw Baekhyun’s golden light through his closed eyelids and felt cool hands on his face.

“Chanyeol,” the boy called him. “Chanyeol. Stand up. You have to stand up.”

“I can’t,” he managed to murmur back. “He’s… He’s doing it already. My energy, he… He’s tilted the Soulstream. You have to…”

“What do I do?”

“Distract him.” Despite everything, his song was still loud and clear. The melody of the world, under the noise. The melody of the Soulstream. They were all variations of the same score after all. If only he could reach the sound, if only—

“And how am I supposed to distract him?”

Chanyeol opened his eyes. The generator was almost broken in Baekhyun’s chest. They didn’t have much time. He smiled. “Didn’t you say you’d go all out? Don’t tell me you don’t feel like punching him in the face.”

Baekhyun’s thumb traced the seam of Chanyeol’s lips, just like he had done the night before. Then, the softness of the contact was gone and his smile and his eyes had hardened. The right one was black, like Insomnia stone, the left was as grayish blue as opaque crystal. He nodded once and turned around, head tilted up.

“Hey!” he called out. “You giant floating white piece of shit! Guess who is on his way to kick your ass!”

He lit himself up, at full potency, skin incandescent and veins pure gold under his skin. Chanyeol heard a buzz and a hiss, and saw Baekhyun take his right hand to his chest and rip the blackened shape of the generator off his chest. It felt on the marble floor with a clank - the beginning of their own personal countdown.

It was then when Haze looked down. All of the mirrors had turned into open windows, showing a patch of night sky that felt strangely like home, and he stood at the middle of them, looking more amused than actually threatened. Miasma was pouring down from his eyes like black tears, and came out from his mouth as well when he parted his lips to speak.

“Ah, Baekhyunnie. What’s the problem, little boy? Do you feel like watching from up close until your turn arrives at the end? You’re not going to wither like my reflection will, you know? Balance cannot affect you. You should feel lucky: I’ll personally deal with you at the end!”

“Why not now?” Eyes never leaving Haze’s face, Baekhyun moved closer to one of the walls. Light was coming out from the cracks on his neck, face and chest, throbbing like the pulse of a living heart. Chanyeol tried not to think about that and focus on the song, aways the song. As long as Baekhyun’s melody rang loud, he could use it to separate his mind from the noise and concentrate. All of the melodies were variations, the same score modified. There was music too, in the Soulstream overhead: something strangely familiar. He needed to listen to that, more clearly. He needed to leave Haze completely in Baekhyun’s hands.

“You intend to fight me? I defeated you once, Baekhyunnie. I destroyed you after I made you. Beat me, you? You can’t do that. You’re a broken little toy.”

Baekhyun had walked backwards until his back was against one of the biggest mirrors. His breath was labored and shallow, and he looked more like a cornered animal than like a winner, but his voice did not shake. “Everyone is a toy to you, isn’t it so? Your family, your friends, your lovers and this town. That’s why you are so alone, right? Because you want to play but you destroy everything you touch. How much does that hurt you, deep down, Your Exalted Majesty?”

Haze’s smile froze in his face. “How dare you? I am the chosen one!”

“You’re a ruler of ruins. Desperate. Hideous. Despised. The person who built himself a substitute of the only man he truly loved because he damaged the original one beyond repair.”

“ _Shut up_.”

Haze’s power gave in, only a bit, and Chanyeol took it greedily. The song was louder now in his ears - Soul Melody and Murder Melody, both and none.

“You turn everything you touch to ashes.”

“Shut up!”

All the variations together created a different melody. Haze, Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Insomnia, the Soulstream. The Song of Dementia. The Soul of the Music. The Song of the Unbroken. The Song of the World. Soul Melody. There was only one noise, Haze’s personal tune, but the music was one in many.

And he needed to grasp it.

“What a shame it is, that you can’t use your own power to erase all the pain from _yourself._ ”

“ _I told you to be quiet!_ ”

Haze was onto him in a second, descending from the ceiling and surrounded by solid noise. Baekhyun was cornered, with the mirrored wall behind and his attacker coming too fast from him to dodge to the sides. Chanyeol was about to run to him, but then he saw Baekhyun _smile_ and stood where he was - he wasn’t there to fight his reflection: his actual role was to break two linked worlds apart.

Baekhyun’s music resounded the loudest. Chanyeol held it, tying himself to it. He _was_ weak, but Haze’s strength would be his if he just turned the flow around.

The song had no lyrics, but he sang anyway.

Haze’s screamed and fell on Baekhyun like a bird of prey.

And the boy actually _grinned and waved_ , before leaning back, over the undulating glass of a mirror that swallowed him in.

“What— No!” Haze called out.

Baekhyun’s shape appeared again, out from one of the mirrors overhead, hidden blades on his wrists aimed to kill when he felt directly on Haze. He found flesh, on the man’s arm and cheek, a strain of crimson staining the white.

“Forgot that I am a Mirror Traveller too?” Baekhyun’s smile was a vicious crack of white teeth on his golden skin as he landed gracefully in front of him, eyes following Haze’s retreating figure. “I don’t have magitec pieces in me anymore, you bastard!”

“You were always unworthy! Look at the pitiful thing you have become after I worked so diligently in making _you_ special.”

The miasma that came from the mirrors and Haze’s shape was dissolving as soon as it touched the air, dissolved in a light so bright that Chanyeol could only see his reflection and Baekhyun, and the aurora over them. When Baekhyun removed the pearls of sweat from his forehead, chips of crystalized skin came with it. “No. Look closely at me. Do you see these cracks on my face? You tried to break me so hard, but you know what? I’m still here.”

He threw himself at Haze again, fast and deadly, and followed him across one of the mirrors when Chanyeol’s reflection tried to use his Travel ability to his advantage once more. And suddenly they were flying, from one mirror to another, so fast that they were two blurred shapes, moving too fast for Chanyeol to hear.

So he closed his eyes and kept singing. He could feel Baekhyun, and knew where he was because his song was always with him, and the melody of the Soulstream was just beyond, finally close enough for him to grasp it.

He felt so cold. He needed more power. The nausea was too strong for him to remain on his two legs anymore. He fell on his knees. He knew what mirror Baekhyun was using, so he started at the other side of the ballroom. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the mirrors clearly: gates, opened at the limit of they capacities, stealing life and enduring an amount of energy they weren’t supposed to. They were as tense as a thread about to snap.

He raised his voice in a wordless plea and the mirror closest to him exploded in a rain of a thousand tiny pieces.

He barely felt the burn and some of the shards of glass dug into the uncovered skin of his neck and face and scalp: they wouldn’t kill him so he had to move forward. He felt weak and dizzy for a second, but then the energy entered him, too hot and too cold and too intense. There it was, the first peak of his power, a current stronger than it had ever been.

He felt like a god. He felt like dying. He could hear the Soul Melody now, too loud.

He focused on the next mirror and shattered it into pieces.

“No!” Haze screamed, someplace above him. “You’ll burn yourself out from the inside. You’ll destroy my world. You foolish little—”

“Your rival here is me!” Baekhyun replied.

Chanyeol’s father had always told him he was special, had signed him up for classes and laughed in glee every time he heard his son coming up with a new song. And perhaps he had been born for that, he thought as he rode the wave, breaking one mirror after another. It was a domino effect, a force of nature he wouldn’t be able to stop, even if he wanted to. Standing in Haze’s ballroom was like looking at the world from the center of a kaleidoscope, and now the illusion was shattering, and the colored aurora of the Soulstream had become a wind that was covering the floor and walls in frost, and all the energy was coming into him, and Chanyeol felt so _fucking cold_ that his insides were on fire.

The song was so loud now that he couldn’t hear anything else.

When he looked down at his hands he saw cracks on his skin.

So that was it.

“NO!”

Noise closed around his throat, a solid thread like the one Haze had used to immobilize him and Baekhyun before. His breath died, his song faltered, and Chanyeol remembered with something akin to amusement that the bond between worlds had not been broken yet - he had taken his energy back, he was the stronger one, and if he killed himself the balance would end Haze too.

What Haze didn’t understand was that the music was _everywhere_ by then. He had said it himself before, in a speech he had never totally comprehended: when it came to Soul Magic at his purest form, everything was about controlling or being controlled, ruling over it or letting the power consume you.

“Chanyeol!”

He was choking. He couldn’t breathe. But when he looked up, Baekhyun was standing between his reflection and him. _Not me,_ he would have wanted to tell him as he struggled to get up. _Go for him. Get him._ He looked at the other boy in the eye as his mind reeled, and perhaps Baekhyun understood, because he turned around.

“You’ve lost, Haze,” he whispered, and the words ringed inside Chanyeol despite of the wind and the song and the noise.

The Soul Melody was his to command, the Murder Melody his weapon of destruction. He didn’t need his voice to order, not when he was already one with the music, and he killed the mirrors one by one and all at the same time, in utter silence for everyone but himself, energy going out from them and into him. He was going to explode, too. He was splintering. The gates were closing, breaking, making the whole mansion shake at its core.

“No!” Haze screamed. “My world! My vision! You don’t understand what you’re doing! You’re breaking it all!”

He rushed towards Chanyeol, one hand stretched towards him. He had the wide, unfocused eyes of a madman and a crack forming on the place in his cheek when he had been cut before. He didn’t even look at Baekhyun - he never had, ever - so he never saw the blades on his wrists until they sank on the soft skin of his stomach.

Chanyeol felt the blow, not physically but somewhere inside him, in the part where the boundaries of his own soul blurred and his spirit was joined to Haze’s by aurora light, and it burned, two stabs in white. Still, he forced himself to stand up.

He barely made it to the place where Baekhyun was, a couple of steps before him, before collapsing against his back, head in the crook of the other boy’s neck and hands around his waist, giving him strength and borrowing his energy. “It’s over,” he murmured. “Baekhyun, he’s over.”

Red drops of blood were falling from the place where Baekhyun’s blade was still buried in Haze’s skin. Crimson on white - it reminded Chanyeol of the snow on the day he had crossed the gate for the first time, profaned. The bond between Haze and him was weakening: it had been a killing blow. Chanyeol could hear the song in him now, so clear. It always had been the same as the Song of the Worlds, the song _between worlds._

One and the same, they were. They had always been.

“I am sorry,” Baekhyun said. Chanyeol didn’t know if he was apologizing to him, to Haze or to himself. “I really am.”

Haze’s white gloved hand went up to caress his face. He was smiling, so softly, and Chanyeol saw his own face in him, so clearly, for the first time. “You look… so much like him,” he said, miasma coming out of his eyes and mouth, falling down his face in thick, black streaks. “He always took the pain away.”

Chanyeol’s conscience flew to the center of the bond between them - it was a frail thing now, almost gone. _Break,_ he commanded. The link splintered, cracked and broke; the freezing aurora wind surrounded them. He amplified the order to every song, every world, and let all the energy out as Haze’s face relaxed, eyes closing just before his eyelashes turned into glass. His whole face followed, solidifying, and Baekhyun took his blades out just before all of him turned into a statue that started to crack and finally splintered in a rain of transparent white.

Baekhyun collapsed, bringing Chanyeol down with him until they both where half sitting, half fallen on the floor. “The room,” he whispered. “The room is frozen.” And it was, like the whole of Haze’s mansion was made of ice.

“I broke it,” Chanyeol murmured back. “The bond between worlds. I broke it when I snapped the link between Haze and me. But there’s still too much energy… here. And Haze’s poison. It’s— You have to help me. Please help me.”

“Yes.”

They stood up together, supporting one another in their step as they walked towards the balcony at the far-end corner of the room. There were no mirrors left, not a single one, and the shards of broken glass cracked under their feet as they stepped out. Insomnia, on the outside, was still too grey, but there was no noise in the air anymore. Haze’s mansion and garden had turned into ice and glass, from the walls to the lake to the leafless trees outside, but the rest could be saved.

“I need your light,” Chanyeol said as he supported both his and Baekhyun’s weight on the handrail. “I need to carry your light, to make the miasma fade.”

Baekhyun nodded, eyes open and focused as he leaned against Chanyeol’s chest. He felt so cold - they both were. “This is my final duty,” he stated. “To Insomnia and to the people that I hurt.”

The song was still so loud, visible and shimmering sound - the brightest aurora the boy had ever seen. And it still listened to his commands, so he begged of it to take the light up, above the grey city, and turn it into lush black again.

Insomnia, the city that never slept. The city that would finally wake up from its nightmare.

At his side, Baekhyun chuckled. His fingers laced through Chanyeol’s, almost absently. “I can hear it, you know?” he said, and Chanyeol looked down.

“Hear what?”

“Your song, all over town. Healing it. We’re doing it, we already did. Haze’s dead, and we—”

The music was coming back to him, pure energy for him to manipulate. He was the only Soul Magic user now, standing in the same place Haze should have if he hadn’t allowed himself to be corrupted. The miasma was almost gone now and the worlds already breaking apart - without a bond, there wouldn’t be a balance, and without a flaw in balance, Euphoria Syndrome would disappear. Insomnia would heal by itself, but with the amount of energy he had he could accelerate the process - make it flourish again with one song and a flicker of his hand.

Only if that energy belonged to him. If he had any desire to be a king. If he didn’t have a perfectly ordinary life elsewhere.

Being the chosen one sounded awesome, if you were Haze instead of Park Chanyeol.

“You still want to come with me?” he asked.

Baekhyun looked up at him, mismatched eyes so dark. “Home? There are no mirrors left.”

“But would you, if you had the chance?”

The other boy looked around, at the city, black under the red and golden light of the dawn. “Yeah. If I had the choice, I— Yes.”

The energy was almost on him, and his body yearned to claim it. Instead of that, he pushed it down, ordering it to open a last door before the worlds were too far apart to cross between them. He didn’t know if it had worked, if it would ever by then, but it was worth the try.

“You do have a choice,” he said, releasing Baekhyun’s hand to climb over the balcony railing. The frozen surface of Haze’s personal lake was undulating, rippling like glimmering, golden water. “I didn’t arrive to Insomnia through a mirror, right? Everything it takes is a little leap of faith.”

Baekhyun stared at the water and, after an endless second, he actually _laughed._ He sounded happy, so happy, genuinely so, and that was more than enough of a reward. “Okay, you win,” he said, taking Chanyeol’s hand. “I’m in for this one, young man. But make it worth my while, will you?”

At that, Chanyeol snorted. “Always. Who do you take me for?”

Then he squeezed Baekhyun’s hand, as tight as he could, and jumped forward.

 

* * *

 

**Encore - Requiem  
** _Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine_

 

Chanyeol would have sworn that he saw another Baekhyun as they travelled through the Soulstream, a boy with black hair and sickly pale skin that smiled at him before everything faded. After that, he felt a crack and an impact, and there suddenly was something cold under his back and a grey, familiar sky above his head.

“Baekhyun,” he croaked. _“Baekhyun.”_

He was too tired to move. He felt like crying. He tried to sit up, fruitlessly, because he was still unsure of where he was, and exhausted, and he needed to check where Baekhyun was, but then a head of ash-brown hair appeared in his field of vision. It was a boy, one he knew too well, staring at him with a frown.

“Oh, fuck,” Chanyeol murmured.

The boy made a face. “Wow, I was going to ask you if you were okay but hey, if you have time to swear I guess you’re alive and well?”

Chanyeol laughed out loud, grabbing the boy by his half-burnt shirt to bring him down for a kiss. Baekhyun was trembling slightly because of the cold, but his skin was soft and warm, no traces of solidified glass or big, ugly cracks. “Your left eye. It’s still blue, you know?”

“Ah, is it?” Baekhyun’s voice was warm as he leaned back, still kind of straddling him, and helped him sit up. He kept smiling at him, and that was wonderful. “I don’t know what in the world I am going to tell the doctor about that. Or about the glass cuts, you know? Or about these scars.” He traced Chanyeol’s cheek with his index finger, and the boy was shuddering under the contact when he saw them too on Baekhyun’s skin: thin, silvery-white lines where the cracks had been. They were barely visible, only there if one looked close enough, but Chanyeol knew, deep down, that they would never go away.

And he didn’t mind it.

“Oh god, help me stand up, please. I’m freezing my ass off here,” he said, because after Baekhyun’s wellbeing, that was his highest priority.

“That is kind of what happens when you decide to take a nap on snow.”

“Snow,” repeated Chanyeol, as Baekhyun placed a hand around his waist to help in onto his feet. “Does that mean it worked? Are we back home?”

The other boy didn’t even need to reply, because as soon as he was standing and could properly look around, the familiarity of it all made his breath stuck in the knot of his throat. He remembered the trees so clearly, big, still leafless shapes surrounding the square where they stood: a small, silent place with green metal benches and a round stone fountain. The water in the basin had been frozen, but the ice was currently broken in half - Chanyeol’s entrance door to Insomnia, finally closed.

The place looked as he remembered, in every way except for the obvious passage of time. It had been night when he had left and was still night now that he had returned, but winter had been arriving when he had opened the gate and now it seemed about to leave, trees a bit stronger and grass a greener, patches of green under the white.

He was home. They were home, and the dull familiarity of his neighborhood suddenly felt more vibrant than a beautiful city that never slept.

“We are, right?” Baekhyun said. “Finally.”

When he reached inside of him, Chanyeol found nothing but silence. It felt so strange for a second, not having a song to go with all that, to be completely alone inside his head when he stared at Baekhyun. It was the first time in his life that he was completely deaf to his personal soundtrack - but he wouldn’t have said that he missed the sound.

He grinned. “Yeah, Baekhyun. Welcome back home.”

—

He learned at the hospital that his mother had been admitted in for treatment at her usual clinic while he was gone. It seemed like the most logical course of action, considering that she had never been okay, and that Chanyeol had been the only one both taking care of her and hiding her real condition.

“We all thought we were gone, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo had told him, reproach clear in his voice, when he went to visit him at his own hospital room. He had rushed in across the door so early in the morning, just after the doctors finished stitching the glass cuts in his hands, face and neck and let him alone to rest. Visit hours must had started barely minutes ago, and his friend was already opening the door like he was torn between punching Chanyeol in the face and start crying.

God, Chanyeol had missed him. No matter how grumpy and bossy Kyungsoo could see, at least he was the type of person who would run to the hospital to see a friend no matter what, instead of hiding in a cave and doing nothing.

Baekhyun had had his own visitors as well, even before the open hours started. He had told Chanyeol about his mother, and his father, and his brother, and his dog, and judging by the muffled voices and sobs inside the room at the other side of the wall, at least all the humans in his family had come to greet him back.

Chanyeol hoped it’d be okay. He wanted to believe Baekhyun would be. He wanted to go see him again, but it there were moments in life people had to face by themselves.

And anyway, they had time now; they had all the time ever, and he, too, had pending issues to solve.

“Did you see the apartment?” he asked Kyungsoo. “When I was missing, did you look for me there?”

His friend was standing in the middle of the room. He had calmed down a bit after walking in, but that was making him much less nervous and more upset. “Yes. And we thought… For a moment the police were contemplating that perhaps she did something to you. In one of her… episodes.”

“She did not.”

“I know that! She said that you’d run away, and that you’d come back, and after the police dropped the case I started to believe her. She looked so certain about it when you were gone, so I didn’t know what to think. Especially considering how ill she _really_ was. You never told us she needed help that badly.”

“I guess not. I told no one.”

“And why wouldn’t you?”

Chanyeol swallowed. “I guess I didn’t want her to be?”

“But she needed heavier treatment!”

“She did. But I thought I could be the one to provide the help she needed, and that I was the only one that _had to_ , but… You go to the hospital when you’re sick, right? Sometimes there are things we can’t exactly do by ourselves.”

Chanyeol had stayed at the hospital for two more days. He had been treated and bandaged and stitched. He had been questioned, by the staff and the police. He had made friends with a clumsy nurse by the name of Zhang Yixing, and had laughed after discovering that he wasn’t exactly a fan of anything historical-related. He had been left out before Baekhyun, and so he had travelled to his mother’s clinic in Sehun’s car, dressed in new clothes and still overwhelmed by the familiarity of the world around him.

His best friend had punched him in the arm when he had seen him. Chanyeol had forgiven him because his car had air conditioning and looked _so fucking cool and modern._

“Did you hit your head when you were gone?” Sehun had asked, looking (a little bit more than) mildly concerned for his wellbeing, and Chanyeol had laughed it off.

“Stars, no!”

Sehun had looked at him for a moment before starting the engine. _“Stars_ ,” he had repeated. And Chanyeol had said nothing else, but his smile had been so wide.

He had been so nervous, however, when they had finally arrived to the clinic. He had entered his mother’s room alone, with his arms and neck and chest bandaged under his clothes, but with a new kind of courage in his mind. And she had been there, still looking sickly and weak, with her skin a bit too pale and his smile a bit too soft, but her eyes had focused on him the moment she saw him walk in.

“Chanyeol,” she said. She had been sitting on a chair near the window and she stood up, hands clasped over her chest. Chanyeol was secretly glad that the rooms in her tiny hospital room were painted light yellow instead of white.

“Mother,” he replied. “I’m back.”

She took a couple of steps forward, too fast for her accompanying nurse to stop her, and before any of them could react she was hugging her son, arms tight around his waist. Chanyeol gasped, wordless. She was the first one to speak.

“You forgot your lucky charms. You forgot them, even though I told you to wear them, and so I knew the monsters had taken you away. Didn’t I warn you? To stay away from your demons?”

Chanyeol swallowed hard, clumsily wrapping his arms around his mother’s back. Euphoria Syndrome was gone, and its counter-effects at the other side of the mirror should be, too, after the gates had closed. And still, wounds needed time to heal - and not all of them did, not completely. But things would get better. They would. He had faith on that; was willing to fight. “Yeah, you did. And you know what, mom? Those demons got me for a moment, but in the end I won. Do you hear that? I was the victorious one.”

His mother smiled against his chest. “I am proud of you.”

And Chanyeol, somehow, was as well.

His melody had been silent since he had returned, but the nightmares were also gone.

—

Chanyeol had bribed Baekhyun to help him paint the house in exchange for Overwatch lessons. It had seemed like a great idea at first, because it had meant he got a helping had, videogame time _and_ Baekhyun’s presence in general, but he had soon realized that the plan didn’t work as well in terms of efficiency when he had both his computer _and_ the boy of his dreams to keep him distracted.

“You’re nervous,” he said. Baekhyun huffed and pressed a leg between his thighs, presumably to shut him up. Sadly, he didn’t succeed. “You’ve cornered me against a wall in my own apartment because you _are_ nervous as hell.”

“I’ve cornered you because you have sky blue paint in your face.” Chanyeol was about to reply that such a statement made no sense, but then Baekhyun was kissing him, hard, and who was him to deny him? He _was_ a practical man, he knew how to recognize good luck when it came knocking on his door - or was practically settled between his legs, or… something. When they pulled away, however, it took Baekhyun approximately half a second to start biting his lip. “It’s really that obvious that I'm nervous?”

“I don’t know if Sehun and Kyungsoo will realize when they arrive, if that’s what you’re asking, but either way your secret’s safe with me.”

Baekhyun groaned, leaning face down on the wall besides Chanyeol. “Whatever you do, please don’t let me mess this up. I swear I’ll punch you in the face if you do. Or I’ll punch myself, depending on who’s responsible.”

“You’ll do fine. My mother already likes you.”

“Your mother and I have developed a weird sense of camaraderie because I go for therapy at the same clinic where she’s hospitalized. That, and I have always good at making middle-aged ladies like me. I am such a charmer.”

“You’re almost admitting you’ll do good, then.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“I have faith in you, though.”

Baekhyun moved his forehead away from the wall just enough to be able to stare at him. He looked all lovely, a young man dressed in one of Chanyeol’s old t-shirts, with his hair ruffled and paint of the crook of his neck. “That’s—” he started. “I really wanted to meet them before you all start the heavy rehearsals for your debut gig, but I don’t know—” The loud ring of the doorbell made him interrupt himself with a gasp. “Oh. _Oh._ Already?”

“Most likely. Are you ready or do you want me to send them away?”

“What? No! That would count as messing up, and I told you I’d punch you in the face if you did. I’m just—”

“Nervous, I know.” Chanyeol snickered as he made his way to the front door with Baekhyun in tow. His apartment looked so different after the both of them had worked to fix it. It had become a place full of light after they had changed the glasses, took away his mother’s lucky amulets and painted the walls the color of the sky. It had already started to become a great place to make new memories in, and he couldn’t wait to show everyone. He had lost the power that had made him different, but the end of the war had turned him a different kind of special. “We’re coming!”

Kyungsoo and Sehun were at the other side of the door, and had brought bags of what looked like snacks and drinks. “Are you up for a break?” Sehun asked.

“I thought you had come here to help.”

“I have personally come here for information.” Kyungsoo left his bag on Chanyeol’s hands and walked himself in, gaze traveling from his friend to Baekhyun. “You still have a lot of explaining to do. What happened for you to be gone for weeks and then reappear out of the blue _and_ with a boyfriend?”

“And a cute one at that,” added Sehun. “No offense, but I was staring to believe that you were going to die alone. It was either that or getting married to a giant standee of Overwatch’s Hanzo.”

At that, Baekhyun’s chuckled. “Well, he can get a giant standee of _me_ now, if he’s into that.” Sehun guffawed, and before Chanyeol could open his mouth and protest because _he had not organized that meeting so they all could gang up in a gratuitous attack against him_ , Baekhyun offered his hand for Sehun to shake. “Hi. I am the boyfriend in the flesh, by the way. Name’s Baekhyun.”

Sehun accepted the greeting, humming softly. “I am still upset with you, Park, for disappearing for so long, but I had to admit I do like this guy. He has an… interesting eye color, but he’s cool.”

Baekhyun looked so satisfied at the praise that Chanyeol felt too happy to be bothered by the slight reproach in his friend’s voice. He’d deal with that, eventually, but he had to take one step at a time.

“He does look like a decent person, but right now I am more interested to know how you met,” Kyungsoo added, following Chanyeol to the living-room. The place was still a mess, with the walls recently painted and the furniture they had managed to salvage covered in old white sheets. “I have to admit I am very curious about where you were and why you have matching scars. At least, please tell me they are not some kind of couple tattoo attempt.”

Chanyeol snorted. “No, not really. I’ll tell you that story eventually, but I don’t think it’s something you would believe right now, so I’m keeping it for myself until you’re prepared.”

“You could try your luck,” said Kyungsoo. “I am known for being very understanding.”

It was Baekhyun who replied, leaning his head on Chanyeol shoulder with a shit-eating grin. “Let me see, we could try. I have always been good at storytelling. This one tale, actually, starts in a black city that never sleeps.”

From the sofa, Sehun rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, you don’t want to share what you did in your secret trip yet. I get it, and I’ll be waiting until we do, but can we eat now? I came here for the food _and_ I paid for it too, so indulge me.”

Baekhyun’s smile softened while his fingers interlocked with Chanyeol’s. “They’ll listen, someday, but meanwhile let’s enjoy, okay? We’re lucky to be back. I’m lucky to be here. So thank you.”

“Yeah.”

Baekhyun hit him in the arm, but he was too happy to care. His boyfriend was right, and things were not perfect, but were getting steadily better. And for the first time in his life he was going to close his eyes and enjoy it all as it came - everything that life had planned for him.

He was Park Chanyeol and he was the luckiest boy in the world.

 

**Murder Melody,**   
_A Requiem in 13 acts.  
FIN_


End file.
